other Me Patperay 



0j EUGENE L. DIDIEI^ 



c,'^ -^__ .^V ^ 



r 



<-p. 



.^"/ 



A- 






A 









-7 



^, 



C^ ^0-'-^. 



^0 q. 



^^. 



v 
^ 






<^\''^yr??l-> .>,^< 






« .^ Y 






t <=>: 









^^ '■g. 



v'- 



.s^ \ 









^/r??p^ 



'^ o 



A ^A 






^. 



."^ 



,\ ' •^ f^"^ 



%^^' ^^^\ %,^^^' .\-t(^\||/^^o >^^< 






*^-'. .^^ 



^.f'^'j^m^^. 



,^-^.r>,f 



•^ ^-'^ 



.N^^ 



'y f> 



\' % 



^ 






>/r??^^ 



'^ o 






x^" "'<^-. ; 



%<=.^' 



^<^ ^ ^ <, N 

■Ct I 






/r^2^- 






N (, 



aV^ ^p. 



'^.f' 
^■5- %. 



.^ 









'-.0^ 

^-^ ^^. 



O ^ (, 



\ 1 








ayi ^ 




ve 



(I 



THE POE CULT 

and 

OTHER POE PAPERS 

With a New Memoir 

By 

EUGENE L. DIDIER 



• 



Broadway Publishing Company 



835 Broadway, New York 






Copyright, 1909, 

BY 

Eugene L. Didier. 



All Rights Reserved. 



In Memory of 

my only Son, 

J. D'ARCY DIDIER, 

the Pride of my Heart, and the Hope of his 

Family, who Died on the 23d of August, 

1907, in the Bright Promise of 

Early Manhood. 



NOTE BY THE AUTHOR. 
The twenty-three separate articles comprised 
in this volume have been published in vari- 
ous American magazines during the last 
thirty-five years. In reading them over in 
proof, I find that some expressions, and even 
some statements, have been repeated. It 
was almost impossible to avoid such repeti- 
tions, written, as the articles were so many 
years apart, and for so many different mag- 
azines. 



TO THE READER. 

From my boyhood the zvritings of Bdgar A. 
Poe have possessed a singular fascination for 
me. Admiration of his works led me to a close 
and exhaustive study of the poefs strange and 
romantic life. Although sixty years have 
elapsed since Poe's death, an amazing amount 
of ignorance still exists upon the subject of 
his life and character. It is hoped that the 
present volume will do something tozvard dis- 
pelling this ignorance, and present the author 
of ''The Raven'' to his countrymen, and the 
world, in some of the most interesting phases 
of his remarkable career. 

For a quarter of a century after Poe's death, 
his name and fame were under a cloud. But 
during the present generation a great and won- 
derful change has taken place 

''Through many a- year his fame has grown, — 
Like midnight vast, like starlight sweet, — 
Till now his genius tills a throne, 
And nations marvel at his feet." 

BUGBNB L. DIDIBR. 
Baltimore, Md. 



CONTENTS. 

Memoir of Bdgar A. Poe / 

The Poe Cult /5 

Poe: Real and Reputed 8y 

The Boyhood of Edgar A. Poe g6 

Poe's Female Friends 102 

Poe and Mrs. Whitm.an iiy 

The Loves of Bdgar A. Poe 12^ 

Poe and Stoddard i^^ 

Ingram's Life of Poe 140 

Woodherry's Life of Poe 14^ 

Recent Biographies of Bdgar A. Poe 1^0 

The True Story of Poe's Death 775 

The Grave of Poe 180 

The Poe Monument 184 

Portraits of Poe ipi 

The Poe Mania 20^ 
The Semi-Centennial of America's Great-^ 

est Poet 2oy 

The Truth about Bdgar A. Poe 216 

Poe in Society 241 
Recollections of Poe by the Witnesses of 

His Life 2^2 
Poe as Seen by Stoddard, Stedman, and 

Harrison 261 

The ''Discoverer'' of Poe 272 

Poe and the University of Virginia 2/^ 
The Centennial of the Birth of Bdgar A. 

Poe 384 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Edgar A. Poe Frontispiece 

PAGE ,^ 

Elizabeth Poe 8 

Maria Qemm . 33 "^ 

Geo. R. Graham (Editor Graham's Magazine) . . . 45 ^' 

Washington Coll. Univ. Hospital 74 ^-^^ 

Sarah Helen Whitman 117 > 

Poe Monument, Baltimore 184 v/ 

Marie Louise Shew 273 v'' 



The Poe Cult 



MEMOIR OF EDGAR A. POE. 

The year of Edgar A. Poe's birth — 1809 — 
was an annus mirabilis in Hterary history. In 
that year were born Alfred Tennyson, EHza- 
beth Barrett Browning, Edward Fitzgerald, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Darwin, 
William E. Gladstone, besides the subject of 
this Memoir. Among these illustrious names, 
Edgar A. Poe was the first in point of time, 
and, in the estimation of many, the first in 
genius. For three score years and more the 
time and place of his birth were unknown. His 
early biographers gave 181 1 as the time, and 
Baltimore as the place of his birth. In order 
to ascertain the truth about the matter, I con- 
sulted Mrs. Maria Clemm, the poet's aunt and 
mother-in-law, who told me that he was born 
in Boston, on the 19th of January, 1809. 

Although more than a dozen lives of Poe 
have been written, there is an amazing amount 
of ignorance upon the subject. This ignorance 
is not confined to the "average reader,'' but I 
have known college professors — professors of 
English in reputable colleges — so grossly ig- 
norant of the facts of Poe's life that they did 



Clje poe Cult 



not know when and where some of his most 
remarkable tales were written; and who ac- 
cepted with childish credulity the malicious and 
mendacious stories told of him. by his enemies. 
David Poe, Junior, the father of the poet, 
was the eldest son of General David Poe, of 
Baltimore. As the younger Poe grew to man- 
hood, he displayed a fondness for amateur act- 
ing, and, with some other youths, formed a 
Thespian Club which met in an attic room of 
his father's house. David Poe was a law stu- 
dent, but so great was his passion for the 
stage, that, in 1804, he threw aside his law 
books, and joined a troup of strolling players. 
C. D. Hopkins, the light comedian of the com- 
pany, died in 1805, ^^^y ^^ ^ f^^ months, Poe 
married his widow, whose maiden name was 
Elizabeth Arnold. She was of English birth — 
pretty, clever, sprightly, vivacious, and a great 
favorite on the stage. After their marriage 
they continued their wandering theatrical life, 
traveling up and down the Atlantic Coast from 
Boston to Charleston. When they died — Mrs. 
Poe on December 8, 181 1, in Richmond, her 
husband, in Norfolk, a few weeks previously 
— they left three helpless children — the eldest, 
William Henry Leonard, was adopted by his 
grandfather, General Poe ; Edgar was adopted 
by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan, of Richmond, and 

8 




ELIZABETH POE, 
Mother of the Poet. 



t)e poe Cult 



Rosalie, by Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie, of the 
same city. The future poet was early taught 
to read, write, draw, and recite verses. On 
the 17th of June, 1815, Mr. and Mrs. Allan 
sailed for London, taken their adopted son 
with them. They remained abroad five years, 
during which time Edgar was a pupil of Dr. 
Bransby's Manor House School, at Stoke- 
Newington, near London. This school and its 
surroundings made a lasting impression upon 
the receptive mind of the young student, and 
he described it with minute accuracy in 'Will- 
iam Wilson," one of his most striking and 
original tales. 

When the Allans returned to Richmond, in 
1820, Edgar became successively a pupil of 
the schools of Joseph H. Clarke and William 
Burke. He stood high in all his classes, and 
was a great favorite of his teachers and fel- 
low students. Professor Clarke told me that 
Edgar wrote genuine poetry even in those early 
days; he was a born poet; his poetical com- 
positions were universally admitted to be the 
best in the school, while the other boys wrote 
mere mechanical verses. As a scholar, he was 
ambitious and always acquitted himself well in 
his studies. During the three years he was at 
Professor Clarke's school, he read the prin- 
cipal Latin and Greek authors ; but he had no 



Ci>e poe Cult 



love for mathematics. He had a sensitive and 
tender heart, and would do anything to serve 
a friend. His nature was entirely free from 
selfishness, the predominant defect of boyhood. 
At the end of the scholastic year, in the sum- 
mer of 1823, Professor Clarke removed from 
Richmond, upon which occasion Poe addressed 
a poetical tribute to him. 

William Burke took Professor Clarke's 
school and most of his pupils; among them 
Edgar Poe. Several years ago Andrew John- 
ston, of Richmond, furnished me with the fol- 
lowing particulars: 

''I entered Mr. Burke's school on the first of 
October, 1823, and found Edgar A. Poe al- 
ready there. I knew him before, but not well, 
there being two, if not three, years difference 
in our ages. He attended the school all 
through 1824, and part of 1825. Some time 
in the latter year he left. He was a much 
more advanced scholar than any of us; but 
there was no other class for him— that being 
the highest — and he had nothing to do, or but 
little, to keep at the head of the school. I dare 
say he liked it very well, for he was fond of 
general reading, and even then he wrote verses 
very clever for a boy of his age, and sometimes 
satirical. We all recognized and admired his 
great and varied talents, and were proud of 

10 



Clie poe Cult 



him as the most distinguished schoolboy in 
Richmond. 

''At that time Poe was sHght in person, but 
well-made, active, sinewy, and graceful. In 
athletic exercises he was foremost: especially, 
he was the best, the most daring, and most en- 
during swimmer that I ever saw in the water. 
When about sixteen years old, he performed 
his well-known feat of swimming from Rich- 
mond to Warwick, a distance of five or six 
miles. He was accompanied by two boats, and 
it took him several hours to accomplish the 
task, the tide changing during the time. 

"Poe was always neat in his dress, but not 
foppish. His disposition was amiable, and his 
manners pleasant and courteous.'' 

After leaving Burke's school in March, 
1825, Mr. Allan placed Edgar under the best 
private tutors in order to prepare him for the 
University of Virginia. He devoted himself 
to the classics, modern languages, and belles- 
lettres. Richmond at that time, as now, was 
celebrated for its polished society. Into this 
society Edgar Poe was early welcome — a boy 
in years, but a man in mind and manners. The 
refined grace and courtesy toward women that 
ever distinguished him may have been then ac- 
quired in the best society of Virginia's beauti- 
ful capital. 



II 



^ht Poe Cult 



On the 14th of February, 1826, Poe entered 
the University of Virginia. The studies which 
he selected were ancient and modern lan- 
guages, and he attended lectures in Latin, 
Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian. He read 
and wrote Latin and French with ease and ac- 
curately, and, at the close of the session, was 
mentioned as excellent in those languages. 
His literary tastes were marked while at the 
University, and among the professors he was 
regarded as well behaved and studious. At the 
end of the session, December 15, 1826, he 
graduated in Latin and French, and returned 
to Richmond. Soon after his return, Mr. Allan 
placed him in his counting room, but the fu- 
ture poet could not brook the dull life of a 
clerk, and, in a few weeks, took French leave. 
Now^ commenced that restless, w^andering life 
which continued until the end. In the Spring 
of 1827, he found himself in Boston, his na- 
tive city, where his mother had made many 
friends before his birth. Here the first edition 
of his ''Tamerlane and Other Poems,'' was 
printed — forty copies. This tiny volume of 
less than forty pages has become one of the 
rarest books in the world, only three or four 
copies are known to be in existence, and has 
sold as high as $2,550. 

Having no money, and no prospect of mak- 

^ 12 



Clie Poe Cult 



ing any, on May 26, 1827, he enlisted as a 
private soldier in the United States Army, 
under the name of Edgar A. Perry, and was 
assigned to Battery H of the ist artillery. 
After a short service in Boston his battery was 
ordered to Fort Moultrie, near Charleston, S. 
C. It was while stationed there that the story 
of a buried treasure was suggested to him, 
which was afterward made the subject of one 
of his most remarkable tales — ''The Gold 
Bug/' By 1829 he was at Fortress Monroe, 
his good conduct and strict attention to his 
duties having earned his promotion to the rank 
of sergeant-major. The officers under whom 
he served soon discovered that he was far su- 
perior in education to his position, and he was 
employed as^ranpany clerk and assistant in the 
Commissary'Department. The discovery of 
Poe's army record, taken from the Records of 
the War Department at Washington, disproves 
at once and forever the romantic story that he 
went to Europe after leaving the University of 
Virginia for the purpose of engaging in the 
struggle for Grecian independence, to w^hich 
the death of Byron had attracted the attention 
of the world. 

On February 28, 1829, his kind, indulgent 
mother, by adoption, Mrs. Allan, died. Her 
death was a great misfortune to Poe, as she 

13 



Cfte poe Cult 



had always stood between him and her stern, 
relentless husband. On April 15, 1829, having 
secured a substitute, our sergeant-major was 
honorably discharged from the army, and paid 
a visit to Baltimore, probably in order to look 
up his relatives there. His second book, "Al 
Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems,'' was 
published in Baltimore in 1829 — a thin volume 
of seventy-one pages. A copy of this edition, 
enriched with notes by the author, has ad- 
vanced in price from $75, in 1892, to $1,825, in 
1903. 

Mr. Allan, wishing to place his wayward 
ward where he could earn a living, and, at the 
same time, be free from all future responsibil- 
ity, obtained his appointmen^^|i^est Point. 
He entered the academy on ^^^^1830, per- 
haps the most brilliant and gifted cadet that 
ever went there. He was in the flower of 
youth, and in the first bloom of that remarkable 
beauty of face and form which distinguished 
him through life. His rich, dark hair fell in 
abundant clusters over his high, white, mag- 
nificent forehead, beneath which shone the 
most beautiful, the most expressive of mortal 
eyes. He was of medium height, but elegantly 
formed, his bearing being proud, lofty, and 
fearless. 

14 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



Poe stood high in his classes, especially in 
French and mathematics — his great fault was 
his neglect of, and apparent contempt for, his 
military dtities: His capricious temper made 
him, at times, utterly oblivious or indifferent to 
the ordinary routine of roll-calls, drills, and 
guard duty. These were all and each utterly 
distasteful to the young poet, whose soul was 
filled with a burning ambition. He turned with 
delight from military tactics to the classic 
pages of Virgil ; he neglected mathematics for 
the fascinating essays of Macaulay, which 
were just then beginning to charm the world; 
he escaped from the evening parade to wander 
along the beautiful banks of the Hudson, 
meditating his tuneful 'Israfel," and, perhaps, 
planning "Jmrn^T or, ''The Fall of the House 
of Usher.^^^^ 

These irregular habits subjected the cadet 
to frequent arrests and punishments, and 
effectually prevented his learning to discharge 
the duties of a soldier. Before Poe had been 
at West Point six months, he found the rigid 
discipline so intolerable that he asked permis- 
sion of Mr. Allan to resign. This was perem- 
torily refused. The reason was obvious : within 
a year after the death of his first wife, Mr. 
Allan married Louise Gabrielle Patterson, of 
New Jersey, and, a son being born, Edgar Poe 

15 



Clje poe Cult 



was no longer the heir to his princely fortune, 
and he wished to keep his ward in an honorable 
profession which would give him a support for 
life. Hence he refused to allow him to leave 
West Point — consent of father or guardian 
being required before a cadet could resign. 
But Poe was determined to get away from the 
academy, with or without Mr. Allan's consent. 
So he commenced a regular and deliberate neg- 
lect of duties and disobedience of rules: he 
cut his classes, shirked the drill, and refused to 
do guard duty. The desired result followed: 
on January 7th, 1831, cadet Edgar A. Poe was 
brought before a general court-marshal, 
charged with ''gross neglect of all duty, and 
disobedience of orders.'' The accused promptly 
pleaded ''guilty" to all the speci|cations, and, 
to his great delight, w^as semen^B "to be dis- 
missed from the service of the United 
States." 

About the time that Poe was dismissed from 
West Point, he published a third volume, en- 
titled "Poems, by Edgar A. Poe." The vol- 
ume contained "Al Aaraef," and "Tamerlane," 
from the edition of 1829, omitting all the 
others, but adding the exquisite lines "To 
Helen," which has won the admiration of all 
readers; the tuneful "Israfel," "Irene" (after- 
ward remodeled into "The Sleeper"), and four 

16 



Cfte poe Cult 



smaller poems. The book was dedicated to the 
United States Corps of Cadets, an honor which 
the cadets did not deserve, for they declared 
the verses ''ridiculous doggerel 



n 



When Poe was dismissed from West Point, 
he was in the situation of Adam when he was 
expelled from the Garden of Eden — the world 
was all before where to choose. He was home- 
less, penniless, friendless. He had been taught 
to spend thousands, but had never been taught 
to earn a dollar. In this emergency he made 
his way to Richmond, and presented himself at 
the home of his youth — the only home he had 
ever known — the Allan mansion on the corner 
of Fifth and Main Streets. His reception was 
not that of the Prodigal Son when he returned 
to his father's house: no fatted calf was killed 
— no friends were invited to meet him — no 
feast was spread to welcome the -wanderer 
home. He was coldly received, where he had 
once been the idolized child of the house. We 
all know the influence of a young wife upon a 
fond, doting old husband. The second Mrs. 
Allan looked with disfavor upon Poe's pres- 
ence in the house, and when he appeared, he 
was told that his former room, which was al- 
ways kept ready for him by the first Mrs. Al- 
lan, was now a guest chamber, and he was as- 

17 



Cfte Poe Cult 



signed to a small room at the back of the 
house, which had been occupied by Mrs. 
Allan's maid. The proud and high-spirited 
young man keenly felt this indignity, and, re- 
fusing to allow his satchel to be carried to the 
room, determined to see Mrs. Allan. A 
stormy interview followed, and Poe left the 
house forever. A letter written to me by a 
Richmond lady, who claimed to be ''a confi- 
dent of Mr. Poe's,'' says the cause of the quar- 
rel between Poe and Allan ''was very simple 
and very natural under the circumstances, and 
completely exonerates Poe from ingratitude 
to his adopted father.'' Whatever was the 
cause, the result was that Poe left the house as 
already mentioned. Writing many years af- 
terward to one who possessed his entire confi- 
dence, Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, he used 
this passionate language: 

''By the God who reigns in heaven, I swear 
to you that I am incapable of dishonor. I can 
call to mind no act of my life which would 
bring a blush to my cheek or to yours. If I 
have erred at all, in this regard, it has been 
on the side of what the world would call a 
Quixotic sense of the honorable — of the chival- 
rous. The indulgence of this sense has been 
the true voluptuousness of my life. It was for 
this species of luxury that in early youth I 

i8 



Cf)e Poe Cult 



deliberately threw away from me a large for- 
tune, rather than endure a trivial wrong!' 

After the affair with Mrs. Allan, just men- 
tioned, Poe probably went to Baltimore, and 
resided with his aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm. For 
the next two years all trace of him is lost, ex- 
cepting a letter which he wrote on May 6th, 
1 83 1, in which he asked William Gwynn, a 
Baltimore editor, for employment in his office. 
Not meeting with any encouragement, he next 
applied to Dr. N. C. Brooks for a position in 
the school which he had recently established 
at Riestertown, in Baltimore County. Fifty- 
eight years afterward. Dr. Brooks told me 
of this, and said he regretted at the time there 
was no vacancy, as he knew that Poe was an 
accomplished scholar. 

During those two years Poe was not idle, 
for, when the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, in 
the summer of 1833, offered one hundred dol- 
lars for the best prose story, and fifty dollars 
for the best poem, he submitted his ''Tales of 
the Folio Club,'' comprising ''A Manuscript 
Found in a Bottle,'' ''A Descent into the Mael- 
strom," ''Adventures of Hans Pfaall," 
^'Berenice," "Lionizing," "A Tale of the 
Ragged Mountain," etc. He also sent in for 
competition a poem, "The Coliseum." Both 
prizes were awarded to Poe by the committee, 

19 



Cf)e poe Cult 



but, as it was not deemed expedient by the 
proprietor of the Saturday Visitor to bestow 
both prizes upon the same person, he was 
awarded the hundred-dollar prize for "A 
Manuscript Found in a Bottle," and an un- 
known local genius was given the fifty dollars 
for the best poem, which was no poem at all. 

The hundred-dollar prize was the first money 
that Poe ever received from literary work, 
and, from that time until his death, he never 
earned a dollar except by his pen. He was at 
that time twenty-four years old, unconscious 
that there was before him sixteen years of 
sufifering and sorrow, of heroic struggle, of 
splendid achievement, and immortal fame! 

In winning the hundred-dollar prize, Poe 
won, at the same time, a good and true friend 
in John P.jKennedy, who was one of the three 
gentlemen who composed the committee of 
award. Every admirer of Poe should appre- 
ciate Mr. Kennedy's kindness to the young 
poet. He alone, of the committee, extended a 
helping hand to the unknown but ambitious 
young author. He invited him to his house, 
made him welcome at his table, and furnished 
him with a saddle horse, that he might take 
exercise whenever he pleased. He did more: 
he introduced him to Thomas W. White, pro- 
prietor of the Southern Literary Messenger, 

20 



Clje Poe Cult 



then recently started in Richmond, and recom- 
mended him as being 'Very clever with his 
pen, classical, and scholar-like." Mr. White 
invited Poe to send him a contribution, and, 
in the March number, 1835, his strangely beau- 
tiful tale, ''Berenice,'' was published in the 
Messenger, and attracted immediate attention. 
From that time, for two years, Poe was a reg- 
ular contributor to that magazine, and was 
rapidly making his name and that of the Mes- 
senger known through the country. 

Malice and ignorance have caused Poe to 
be charged with pride and ingratitude. That 
these vices were foreign to his nature, we have 
abundant evidence, all through his life. Here 
are two examples which occurred at the period 
about which we are now writing : He visited 
each of the gentlemen who awarded him the 
prize, and thanked them for their approval of 
his literary work. Again, in order to show 
Poe's gratitude to Mr. Kennedy, I quote two 
passages from a letter written to Mr. White, 
dated Baltimore, May 30, 1835. He had writ- 
ten a criticism of Kennedy's once famous his- 
torical novel, "Horse-Shoe Robinson," and 
apologizing for the hasty sketch he sent, in- 
stead of the thorough review which he in- 
tended, says, "At the time I was so ill as to be 
hardly able to see the paper on which I wrote, 

21 



Cfie poe Cult 



and I finished it in a state of complete ex- 
haustion. I have not, therefore, done any- 
thing Hke justice to the book, and I am vexed 
about the matter, for Mr. Kennedy proved 
himself a true friend to me in every respect, 
and / am sincerely grateful to him for many 
acts of generosity and attention/' In that same 
letter, in answer to Mr. White's query, whether 
he was satisfied with the pay he was receiv- 
ing for his work on the Messenger, Poe wrote : 
''I reply that I am, entirely. My poor services 
are not zvorth what you give me for them/' 

For two or three years, Edgar Poe had been 
engaged in the most delightful of occupations 
— the instruction of a young girl, singularly 
beautiful, interesting, and truly loved. For 
two or three years Virginia — his starry-eyed 
young cousin — had been his pupil. Never had 
teacher so lovely a pupil, never a pupil so 
tender a teacher. They were both young; she 
was a child 

''But our love it was stronger by far than the love 
Of those who were older than we." 

Under the name of Eleonora, Edgar tells the 
story of their love: ''The loveliness of Eleo- 
nora was that of the seraphim, and she was a 
maiden artless and innocent as the brief life 
she had led among the flowers — I, and my 
cousin, and her mother/' 

22 



Clje poe Cult 



Mr. White soon saw how valuable to his 
magazine were the contributions of Edgar 
Poe, and in the summer of 1835 he offered 
him the position of assistant editor of the Mes- 
senger, at a salary of ten dollars a week. He 
gladly accepted this offer, and prepared to re- 
move to Richmond immediately, and his letters 
show that, on the 20th of August, 1835, he was 
in that city. 

In spite of his rising fortune and increasing 
fame, he felt most keenly the separation from 
*'her he loved so dearly.'' For years Virginia 
had been his daily companion and confidante. 
Like Abelard and Heloise, they had but one 
home and one heart. In the first days of this 
separation he wrote his friend, Mr. Kennedy, 
a letter, dated Richmond, September 11, 1835, 
in which, after expressing a deep sense of his 
gratitude for his frequent kindness and as- 
sistance, he says: ''I am suffering under a 
depression of spirits such as I never felt be- 
fore. I have struggled in vain against the in- 
fluence of this melancholy ; you will believe me 
when I say that I am still miserable, in spite 
of the great improvement in my circum- 
stances. Write me immediately; convince me 
that it is worth one's while — that it is at all 
necessary — to live, and you will prove indeed 
my friend. Persuade me to do what is right. 

23 



CDe poe Cult 



I do, indeed, mean this. Write me, then, and 
quickly. Your words will have more weight 
with me than the words of others, for you were 
my friend when no one else was.'' 

So great satisfaction did Poe give by his 
work as assistant editor of the Messenger, 
that, in December, 1835, White made him the 
editor of the magazine, and increased his sal- 
ary to $800 a year. 

As his pecuniary prospects brightened, his 
first thought w^as to bring his aunt and cousin 
to Richmond, where, in May, 1836, Edgar and 
Virginia were married. 

During the nineteen months that Poe was 
with the Messenger, the circulation of the 
magazine increased from 700 to 5,000. This 
remarkable increase of circulation' was chiefly 
due to Poe's brilliant contributions, which at- 
tracted the attention of the whole country. 
Between December, 1835, and September, 
1836, he wrote ninety-four reviews, more or 
less elaborate, but all striking. Even at that 
early period of his literary life, he showed that 
artistic finish of style which distinguished his 
whole career, and that power of analysis and 
abhorrence of careless writing which was al- 
ways one of his marked characteristics. These 
early critiques were not by any means condem- 
natory. In fact, only three of the whole 

24 



Cl&c Poe Cult 



ninety- four were decidedly harsh. No Ameri- 
can critic had a more sincere appreciation of 
literary excellence than Poe, and he showed 
it in his criticism. George Parsons Lathrop, 
whose worship of Hawthorne was inspired by 
h^s love of Hawthorne's lovely daughter, Rose, 
was unjust and unappreciative of Poe, but he 
was forced to admit that, ''we owe to Poe the 
first agile and determined movement of crit- 
icism in this country, and, although it was a 
startling dexterity which winged his censorial 
shafts, he was excellently fitted for the critic's 
office in one way, because he knew positively 
of what standards he meant to judge by, and 
kept up an inflexible hostility to any offense 
against them. He had an acute instinct in 
matters of literary form ; it amounted, indeed, 
to a passion, as all his instincts and perceptions 
did ; he had, also, the knack of finding reasons 
for his opinions, and of stating them well. All 
this is essential to the equipment of the critic.'' 
An estimate of Poe as a poet by the same 
unfriendly critic is worth preserving: ''As a 
mere potency, Poe must be rated almost high- 
est among American poets; and high among 
prosaists ; no one else offers so much pungency, 
such impetuous and frightful energy crowded 
into such small space. . . . Let us call Poe 
a positive genius. He would have flourished 

25 



€:bt Poe Cult 



anywhere in much the same way as he did in 
America/' 

Hawthorne said: ''I do not want to be a 
doctor and live by men's diseases, nor a min- 
ister and Hve by their sins, nor a lawyer and 
live by their quarrels. So, I do not know that 
there is anything for me but to be an author/' 
His relatives urged him to go into business, his 
genius forbade it. He was made to feel that 
he was a useless dreamer, and this drove him in 
upon himself ; but he persisted. Poe must have 
felt the same way, saying, '1 do not want to 
be a soldier and kill men, and I won't; I will 
be an author;" and he was. Hawthorne was 
the natural result of the grim, gloomy, stern 
Puritan spirit, but Poe had no literary an- 
cestors: he stands alone as a strange, unique, 
mysterious, fascinating figure in the literature 
of the world, representing no country, no race, 
no time. His genius was alien to American 
soil. He stands alone among American poets 
as Shakespeare stands alone among the poets 
of the world. He had no predecessor ; he has 
had no successors. His appearance in the 
literary world was as sudden and unexpected 
as it was strange and wonderful. His original 
and distinct genius astonished the world like 
a new, brilliant planet suddenly appearing in 
the heavens. 

26 



C!)e Poe Cult 



Poe's message to the world was that man 
does not Hve by bread alone — that there is a 
higher, nobler, grander ideal to be realized 
than money-getting, commercialism, materi- 
alism. Poe's genius was a revelation to 
the world — his extraordinary gifts elevated 
him far above all his contemporaries, and 
placed him as a star, apart. His own coun- 
trymen were not ready to receive him when 
he came, and he suffered accordingly. One 
poet like Poe is worth more to the world than 
a hundred Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Goulds, 
Carnegies, and Harrimans. Such men are the 
natural product of American life, but Al- 
mighty God alone can produce a poet of in- 
spired genius. Poe had the culture that some- 
times is lacking in genius; he had the refine- 
ment which is sometimes wanting in great! 
minds. It is not the millionaire, but the poetji 
that makes life worth living. The millionaire] 
is really a blot upon American civilization ; tha 
poet gives life a tone and a color. It has beeffl 
said that the memories of kings and conquerors 
flit like troubled ghosts through the pages oi 
history; but it is only the name of the thinker 
of great thoughts, the poet of rare gifts that 
foreign nations and after generations cherish. 
Like Bacon, Poe might have left his ''name 
to the next ages and to foreign nations." For 

27 



Cf)e Poe Cult 



his fame has grown steadily since his tragical 
death, not only in his own land, but among 
''foreign nations/' 

It should be mentioned that Poe was only 
twenty-six years old when he was made editor 
of the Southern Literary Messenger, and that, 
in less than two years, he gave it a command- 
ing position among American magazines. 
Perhaps no similar enterprise ever prospered 
so largely in its commencement, and none in 
the same length of time — not even Blackwood, 
in the brilliant days of Maginn, ever published 
so many dazzling articles from the same pen. 
Strange stories of the German school, akin to 
the most fanciful legends of the Rhine, fasci- 
nating and astonishing the reader with the 
verisimilitude of their improbability, appeared 
in the same number with lyrics plaintive and 
wondrous sweet, the earliest vibrations of 
those chords which have since sounded through 
the world. 



In January, 1837, the blood of the wan- 
derer, which he derived from his actress- 
mother, drove him from Richmond to New 
York, in which city Mrs. Clemm started a 
boarding house on Carmine Street. One of 
the few boarders was William Gowans, the 
eminent second-hand bookseller, who has left 

28 



Cfje Poe Cult 



an interesting account of Poe at that time: 
''For eight months or more 'one house con- 
tained us, as one table fed/ During that time 
I saw much of Edgar A. Poe, and had an 
opportunity of conversing with him often, and, 
I must say that, I never saw him the least af- 
fected with liquor, nor even descend to any 
vice, while he was one of the most courteous, 
gentlemanly, and intelligent companions I have 
met with during my journeyings and haltings 
through divers divisions of the globe; beside, 
he had an extra inducement to be a good man 
as well as a good husband, for he had a wife 
of matchless beauty and loveliness; her eye 
could match that of any houri, and her face 
defy the genius of a Canova to imitate; a 
temper and a disposition of surpassing sweet- 
ness; besides, she seemed as much devoted to 
him and his every interest as a young mother 
to her first-born. Poe had a remarkably pleas- 
ing and prepossessing countenance, what the 
ladies would call decidedly handsome/' 

Poe's object in removing to New York, at 
this time, was because he thought that city 
offered greater advantages to a professional 
man of letters than the provincial town of 
Richmond. He was promised a position on the 
New York Review, but that periodical was al- 
ready in the throes of dissolution, and did not 

29 



Cle Poe Cult 



long survive the financial panic of 1837. Poe's 
only contribution to it was an elaborate review 
of Stephens' ''Incidents of Travel in Egypt, 
Arabia, Petraea, and the Holy Land/' 

In the number of the Southern Literary 
Messenger which announced Poe's retirement, 
Mr. White promised that he would ''continue 
to furnish its columns from time to time with 
the effusions of his vigorous and powerful 
pen." In the January number of the Mes- 
senger, 1837, which was the last under Poe's 
editorship, appeared the first installment of 
"The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," 
which was continued in the February number, 
and afterward published in book form in New 
York and London. As usual with Poe's 
works, it attracted more attention abroad than 
at home. It should be mentioned that he never 
relinquished his early interest in the Mes- 
senger, but wrote for it as long as he lived. As 
some of his earliest, so some of his latest, writ- 
ings first appeared in that magazine. 

Poe's first residence in New York lasted 
from the winter of 1837 to the summer of 
1838, when he removed to Philadelphia. Soon 
after his arrival in the Quaker City, he was 
asked by his old friend, Dr. N. C. Brooks, to 
write the leading article for the first number 
of The American Museum, a monthly maga- 

30 



Cfte poe Cult 



zine about to be started in Baltimore, and des- 
tined to add to the collection of dead maga- 
zines for which that city enjoys an unenviable 
reputation ; in fact, while many magazines have 
been born and died in the Monumental City, it 
can boast of no living monthly, although it 
boasts of a population of 600,000 inhabi- 
tants. 

Dr. Brooks suggested that Poe should write 
an article on Washington Irving. In answer 
to this request, Poe wrote a letter which Pro- 
fessor Harrison credits to an Englishman who 
claims to have ^'discovered'' Poe, but he did 
not ''discover'' this letter, for I saw the orig- 
inal, in 1873, and printed it in my first "Life 
of Poe," which was published in 1876, al- 
though the book was dated for the next year. 
From my work, the Englishman copied the let- 
ter into his Memoir, which was not published 
until 1880. Poe did not write the article on 
Washington Irving for Dr. Brooks, but the 
first number of the American Museum con- 
tained "Ligeia," which its author regarded as 
his best story, because it displays the highest 
range of imagination. In this same magazine 
he published his clever satirical sketch, "The 
Signora Psyche Zenobia," "Literary Small 
Talk," and the dainty, airy, exquisite "Haunted 
Palace." A Northern critic, who is not over- 

31 



Cije Poe Cult 



favorable to Poe, pronounces 'Xigeia'' a story 
'^as faultless as humanity can fashion.'' 

Poe had several homes during the six years 
that he lived in Philadelphia — from 1838 to 
1844 — but he resided for the longest time at 
Spring Garden, then a suburb of the city. It 
was there that Captain Mayne Reid visited 
him, and wrote a most delightful description 
of his home and family. The house was small, 
but furnished with much taste ; flowers bloomed 
around the porch, and the singing of birds was 
heard. It was, indeed, the very home for a 
poet. 'In this humble domicile,'' says Mayne 
Reid, ''I have spent some of the pleasantest 
hours of my life — certainly, some of the most 
intellectual. They were passed in the company 
of the poet and his wife — a lady angelically 
beautiful in person, and not less beautiful in 
spirit. No one who remembers the dark- 
haired, dark-eyed daughter of the South — her 
face so exquisitely lovely — her gentle, graceful 
demeanor — no one who has been an hour in 
her society, but will indorse what I have said 
of this lady, who was the most delicate realiza- 
tion of the poet's rarest ideal. But the bloom 
upon her cheek was too pure, too bright for 
earth. It was consumption's color — that sadly 
beautiful light that beckons to an early grave. 

''With the poet and his wife there lived an- 

32 




MARIA CLE MM. 
From her last photograph from life, 1868; aged seventy-eight years. 



Cliepoe Cult 



other person — Mrs. Clemm. She was the 
mother of Mrs. Poe, and one of those proud 
Southern women who have inspired the song 
and chivalry of their beautiful land. Mrs. 
Clemm was the ever-vigilant guardian of the 
house, watching over the comfort of her two 
children, keeping everything neat and clean, 
so as to please the fastidious eyes of the poet — 
going to market, and bringing home little deli- 
cacies that their limited means would allow; 
going to editors with a poem, a critique, or a 
story, and often returning without the much- 
needed money." 

This is a very pleasing glimpse at the home 
life of our poet, and all the more valuable, 
coming as it does, spontaneously from a for- 
eigner. Such scenes show more truly a man's 
real character than volumes of human analy- 
sis. I shall close this personal description of 
the poet with some particulars which Mrs. 
Clemm furnished me toward the close of her 
life, and which I took down in shorthand at the 
time: ^'Eddie had no idea of the value of 
money. I had to attend to all his pecuniary 
affairs. I even bought his clothes for him ; he 
never bought a pair of gloves or a cravat for 
himself; he was very charitable, and would 
empty his pockets to a beggar. He loved Vir- 
ginia with a tenderness and a devotion which 

33 



Cle poe Cult 



no words can express, and he was the most 
affectionate of sons to me/' 

Not long after Poe's removal to Phila- 
delphia, he was engaged as a contributor for 
The Gentleman's Magazine, which was owned 
by William E. Burton, an English comedian, 
who is better remembered as an actor than as 
an editor and publisher. He drew immediate 
attention to the magazine by his powerful 
criticisms and strange, fascinating tales. 
Among the latter was ''The Fall of the House 
of Usher,'' which is regarded by most readers 
as Poe's masterpiece in imaginative fiction; 
but, as already mentioned, he gave that pref- 
erence to 'Xigeia." It has been said that "both 
have the unquestionable stamp of genius. The 
analysis of the growth of madness in one, and 
the thrilling revelation of the existence of a 
first wife in the person of a second, in the 
other, are made with consummate skill ; and the 
strange, and solemn and fascinating beauty, 
which informs the style, and invests the cir- 
cumstances of both, drugs the mind, and makes 
us forget the improbabilities of their general 
design, 



yf 



So well pleased was Burton with Poe's con- 
tributions to The Gentleman's Magazine, that, 
in May, 1839, he made him its editor. The 

34 



C!)e poe Cult 



pay was small — ten dollars a week — a paltry- 
salary for a man of Poe's genius and reputa- 
tion. In the Autumn of 1840, Burton sold his 
magazine to George R. Graham, owner of 
The Casket. The two periodicals were merged 
into one under the name of Graham's Maga- 
zine, with Poe as its editor. In two years he 
raised the circulation from 5,000 to 50,000. In 
the April, 1841, number of Graham's ap- 
peared the extraordinary, analytical story, 
''The Murders in the Rue Morgue,'' which 
first introduced him to French readers, and, 
also, made his name known to the French 
courts. A Paris Bohemian, having come 
across the story, dressed it up to suit the Pari- 
sian palate, published it in Le Commerce, as an 
original tale, under the name of 'X'Orang- 
otang.'' Not long afterward, another French 
journal. La Quotidienne, published a transla- 
tion of the story under another name. There- 
upon Le Steele charged La Quotidienne with 
having stolen said feuilleton from one previ- 
ously published in Le Commerce. This led to 
a war of words between the editors of La 
Quotidienne and Le Steele. The quarrel be- 
came so warm that it was taken to the law 
courts for settlement, where the aforesaid 
Bohemian proved that he had stolen the story 
from Monsieur Edgar Poe, an American 

35 



Clje Poe Cult 



writer. It was shown that the writer in La 
Quotidienne was himself an impudent plagiar- 
ist, for he had taken Monsieur Poe's story 
without a word of acknowledgment ; while the 
editor of Le Siecle was forced to admit that 
not only had he never read any of Poe's works, 
but had not even heard of him. The public 
attention having been thus directed to Poe, 
his best tales were translated by Madame Isa- 
belle Mennier, and published in several French 
magazines. The leading Parisian journals 
showered praises upon our author for the re- 
markable power and amazing ingenuity dis- 
played in these tales. Many years afterward, 
Charles Baudelaire, having thoroughly imbued 
himself with the spirit of Poe's prose writings, 
published a translation of them in five vol- 
umes. Poe is the only American author who 
is known, or, at least, popular, in France; and 
that he is known there is due, in a great meas- 
ure, to the patient industry of Baudelaire. 

''The Murders in the Rue Morgue'' was fol- 
lowed, in November, 1841, by ''The Mystery 
of Marie Roget,'' in which the scene of the 
murder of a cigar girl, named Mary Rogers, 
in the vicinity of New York, was transferred 
to Paris, and, by a wonderful train of analyt- 
ical reasoning, the mystery that surrounded 
the affair was completely disentangled. These, 

36 



Cl^e poe Cult 



and a succeeding story, ''The Purloined Let- 
ter," are the most ingenious tales of ratiocina- 
tion in the English language, and were the 
foundation of the modern detective story, so 
successfully carried out by Conan Doyle, the 
creator of ''Sherlock Holmes,'' Robert Louis 
Stevenson and others, who have frankly ad- 
mitted their indebtedness to Poe. It will be 

interesting to know that Monsieur G , the 

Prefect of the Parisian police, who is men- 
tioned in these stories, was Monsieur Grisquet, 
for many years Chief of the Paris Police, who 
died in February, 1866. 

The most extraordinary of Poe's successful 
efforts at ratiocination was that in which he 
pointed out what must be the plot of Dickens' 
celebrated novel, "Barnaby Rudge," when only 
the beginning of the story had been published. 
In the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post of 
May I, 1841, Poe printed what he called "a 
prospective notice'' of the novel, in which he 
used the following words : 

"That Barnaby is the son of the murdered 
man may not appear evident to our readers; 
but we will explain : The person murdered is 
Mr. Reuben Haredale. His steward (Mr. 
Rudge, Senior), and his gardener, are miss- 
ing. At first both are suspected. 'Some 
months afterward,' in the language of the 

37 



C!)e poe Cult 



story, 'the steward's body, scarcely to be recog- 
nized, but by his clothes and the watch and 
the ring he wore, was found at the bottom of 
a piece of water in the grounds, with a deep 
gash in the breast, where he has been stabbed 
by a knife,' etc., etc. 

''Now, be it observed, it is not the author 
himself who asserts that the steward's body 
was found; he has put the words in the mouth 
of one of his characters. His design is to 
make it appear in the denouement that the 
steward, Rudge, first murdered the gardener, 
then went to his master's chamber, murdered 
him, was interrupted by his (Rudge's) wife, 
whom he seized and held by the wrist, to pre- 
vent her giving the alarm, that he then, after 
possessing himself of the booty desired, re- 
turned to the gardener's room, exchanged 
clothes with him, put upon the corpse his own 
watch and ring, and secreted it where it was 
afterward discovered at so late a period that 
the features could not be identified." 

Readers who are familiar with the plot of 
"Barnaby Rudge," will perceive that the dif- 
ferences between Poe's preconceived ideas and 
the actual facts of the story are immaterial. 
Dickens expressed his admiring appreciation 
of Poe's analysis of "Barnaby Rudge." He 
would not have expressed the same apprecia- 

38 



Cfte poe Cult 



tion of Poe's opinion of him, when reviewing 
the completed novel. At the time when Charles 
Dickens was the most popular writer in the 
world, Edgar Poe (who could never be made 
to bow his supreme intellect to any idol) 
boldly declared that he ''failed peculiarly in 
pure narrative," pointing out, at the same 
time, several grammatical mistakes of the 
great Boz. He also showed that Dickens occa- 
sionally lapsed into a gross imitation of what 
itself is a gross imitation — the manner of 
Charles Lamb — a manner based in the Latin 
construction. He further showed that Dick- 
ens's great success as a novelist consisted in 
the delineation of character, and that those 
characters vv^ere grossly exaggerated carica- 
tures—all of which is now admitted by judic- 
ious readers; but it required considerable 
courage to announce such an opinion at the 
time w^hen Poe proclaimed it at the height of 
Dickens's popularity. When Dickens visited 
the United States in 1842, Poe had two long 
interviews with him. He made a lasting im- 
pression upon the impressible Boz, and when 
he made his last visit to this country in 1867-8, 
he called upon Mrs. Clemm, in Baltimore, and 
presented her with $150.00. 

Poe's restless spirit grew tired of the ''end- 
less toil" of the editorial work on Graham's 

39 



Cfte Poe Cult 



Magazine, and he endeavored to obtain more 
certain and more remunerative employment. 
His intimate friend and lifetime correspond- 
ent, F. W. Thomas, of Baltimore, author of 
''Clinton Bradshaw,'' ''East and West," and 
other novels of some repute sixty or seventy 
years ago, had obtained a Government clerk- 
ship in one of the Departments in Washing- 
ton. In 1842, Poe wrote to Thomas, express- 
ing a wish to get a similar position, saying 
that he ''would be glad to get almost any ap- 
pointment — even a five hundred dollar clerk- 
ship — so that I have something independent of 
letters for a subsistence. To coin one's brain 
into silver, at the nod of a master, is, I am 
thinking, the hardest task in the world." At 
the conclusion of his letter, he says he hopes 
some day to have a "beautiful little cottage, 
completely buried in vines and flowers." How 
fortunately for the world that Edgar Poe did 
not secure "even a five hundred dollar clerk- 
ship !" Had he settled down to the dull routine 
of official life in Washington, he would prob- 
ably not have written "The Raven," "Eureka," 
"The Literati of New York," "Ulalume," 
"The Bells," and other productions that 
form an imperishable portion of American 
literature. 

About a year after Poe removed to Phila- 

40 



/ 



Clie Poe Cult 



delphia, he collected his stories, including 
"Ligeia," "The Fall of the House of Usher," 
"The Ms. Found in a Bottle, "Morella," "The 
Assignation,'' and others less known, and pub- 
lished them, in 1840, under the title of "Tales 
of the Grotesque and Arabesque/' The edition 
was small, and small was the notice it re- 
ceived from the press and the public. The 
publishers allowed Poe no remuneration for 
this first edition of his Prose Tales, and gave 
him only twenty copies for distribution. Two 
years after the book was issued, he was in- 
formed that the edition was not all sold, and 
that it had not paid expenses. Yet, within 
a few years, this same edition of these same 
tales has sold at a fabulous price at the book 
auctions in New York. 

During his early residence in Philadelphia, 
Poe edited a work on Conchology which caused 
some controversy at the time, of little interest 
then, and of no interest now. 

Although Poe's own countrymen were 
slow to recognize his genius, he was quick in 
recognizing the genius of others, and in be- 
stowing generous praise upon all deserving 
contemporaries. He was the first American 
critic to proclaim the genius of Mrs. Brown- 
ing (then Miss Barrett) to the world; and 
when ht collected his poems into a volume, the 

41 



Cfte Poe Cult 



book was dedicated to her, as ''To the noblest 
of her sex, with the most enthusiastic admira- 
tion, and with the most sincere esteem/' He 
was the first to introduce to American readers 
the then unknown poet, Tennyson, and boldly 
declared him to be ''The noblest poet that ever 
lived,'' at a time when the English critics had 
failed to discover the genius of the future 
Poet-Laureate. He discovered the morbid 
genius of Hawthorne, when the latter was, as 
he said of himself, ''the most obscure literary 
man in America/' Poe's estimate of Willis, 
Halleck, Cooper, Simms, Longfellow, and 
other contemporaries, was eminently just. He 
placed the last the first among American 
poets; the position which Poe himself now 
holds, in the opinion of the leading scholars of 
England, France and Germany. It should be 
added that he qualified this praise of Long- 
fellow by declaring that he was over-rated as 
an original poet. 

Edmund Clarence Stredman, who had only 
a half-hearted appreciation of Poe, was honest 
enough to say that he "was a critic of ex- 
ceptionable ability," and agreed with James 
Russell Lowell that "his more dispassionate 
judgments have all been justified by time," 
and that he "was a master in his own chosen 
field" of poetry. It has been well and truly 

42 



^bt Poe Cult 



said by an unknown writer in the Atlantic 
Monthly, of April, 1896, in an article on ''The 
New Poe/^ that until ''we have a critic of the 
History of the Intellectual Development of this 
Country during the 19th Century, ... it 
is impossible to form any conclusions in regard 
to Poe that can be considered final/' Charles 
Leonard Moore, in a carefully written article 
in the Chicago Dial of February 16, 1903, pays 
a just tribute to Poe's critical powers when 
he says: "Undoubtedly, Poe performed one 
of the most difficult feats of criticism. With 
almost unerring instinct, he separated the* 
wheat from the chaff of his contemporary 
literature.'' In this same article, Mr. Moore 
declares that "Poe is the most sublime poet 
since Milton — a sublimity which stirs even in 
his most grotesque and fanciful sketch. It 
rears full-fronted in the concluding pages of 
the 'Narrative of A. Gordon Pym.' It thrills 
us in the many-colored chambers of 'The 
Mask of the Red Death.' It overwhelms us 
with horror in 'The Murders of the Rue 
Morgue.' It is sublime and awe-inspiring in 
'Ligeia,' 'The Fall of the House of Usher,' in 
'Ulalume,' and 'The Raven.' He reaches a 
climax of almost too profound thought in 'The 
Colloquy of Monos and Una,' 'The Power of 
Words,' and 'Eureka.' His sublimity ac- 

43 



Cije Poe Cult 



counts for his fate with the American public. 
A true Democracy, it abhors greatness and 
ridicules sublimity.'' Mr. Moore says, fur- 
ther : ''The total effect of his work is lofty 
and noble. His men are all brave and his 
women are pure. He is the least vulgar of 
mortals. In every land which boasts of literary 
culture, or civil enlightenment, Poe's poems 
and tales are read, and he is regarded as a 
distinctive genius." 

The first four years of Poe's residence in 
Philadelphia — 1838-42 — were the most prod- 
uctive of his literary life. These four years 
show the most extraordinary amount of first- 
class literary work that has even been ac- 
complished in this country in the same space 
of timxC. Unfortunately, the author of all of 
this fine, artistic work received only a pittance 
as his pecuniary reward. All this time he was 
poor — desperately poor — and in the last of 
these four years of surpassing achievements, 
a great affliction came upon him — his wife — 
his idolized Virginia — broke a blood-vessel in 
singing. From that hour until her death, five 
years afterwards, the delicate condition of his 
wife's health was a constant source of care 
and anxiety to the devoted husband. While 
struggling against poverty, and in the midst 
of the most disheartening surroundings, his 

44 




^-^^ 



Cc^^ 



ESQirora ©P ©m^CQ^Ka^'S (Sa^®£\2QRlE 



Cfje Poe Cult 



wonderful imagination filled his soul with 
dreams of princely palaces and royal gardens, 
in which lived and moved forms of more than 
earthly beauty. 

Friends and foes alike agree in testifying to 
Poe's tender devotion to his darling wife, ''in 
sickness and in health." The most unrelenting 
of his enemies mentions having been sent for 
to visit him ''during a period of illness, caused 
by protracted and anxious watching at the side 
of his sick wife.'' George R. Graham, in a 
generous defense of the dead poet, said, "I 
shall never forget how solicitous of the happi- 
ness of his wife and mother-in-law he was, 
whilst editor of Graham's Magazine. His 
whole efforts seemed to be to procure the com- 
fort and welfare of his home. . . . His 
love for his wife was a sort of rapturous wor- 
ship of the spirit of beauty which he felt was 
fading before his eyes. I have seen him hover- 
ing over her, when she was ill, with all the 
fond fear and tender anxiety of a mother for 
her first-born; her slightest cough causing in 
him a shudder, a heart-chill that was visible. I 
rode out one summer evening with them, and 
remembrance of his watchful eyes, eagerly 
bent upon the slightest change of hue in that 
loved face, haunts me yet as the memory of a 
sad strain. It was this hourly anticipation of 

45 



Clbc Poc Cult 



her loss that made him a sad and thoughtful 
man, and lent an undying melody to his undy- 
ing song/' 

In the spring of 1842, Poe retired from 
Graham's Magazine. His reputation as the 
most brilliant editor in America ; his fame as a 
poet and as a writer of purely imaginative 
tales, and his success in making Graham's 
Magazine the most profitable in the United 
States, made him feel the very natural am- 
bition of having a magazine of his own — a 
magazine in which he would be perfectly un- 
trammeled, entirely free from the control of 
timid publishers. With this object, he issued 
the prospectus of a magazine to be called The 
Stylus. Contributors and illustrators were en- 
gaged; the day was fixed for the appearance 
of the first number ; everything w^as ready but 
the most important thing of all — the money 
to publish it. So the enterprise w^as tempor- 
arily abandoned, to be taken up again and 
again until the close of Poe's life. 

In 1843 he won the hundred dollar prize of- 
fered by the Dollar Magazine, of Philadelphia, 
for the best short story. It was one of his 
most popular tales, ''The Gold Bug,'' which 
gained this prize. It is founded on the dis- 
covery of the supposed buried treasure of Cap- 
tain Kyd. The story displays a remarkable 

46 



Cfte poe Cult 



illustration of Poe's theory that human in- 
genuity can construct no enigma which the 
human mind, by proper application, cannot 
solve. The chief interest centres on the solu- 
tion of an abstruse cryptogram. 

This one hundred dollar prize came when 
Poe was much in need of money, for after 
leaving Graham's Magazine, he was without 
any regular work during the rest of his stay 
in Philadelphia. He wrote for James Russell 
Lowell's short-lived magazine. The Pioneer, 
and some notable reviews for Graham's Maga- 
zine. After the issue of three numbers. The 
Pioneer was discontinued, and Lowell was 
very much distrest because he could* not pay 
his contributors, among them Poe, who, al- 
though wanting the money, wrote to the un- 
fortunate editor: ''As for the few dollars 
you owe me ($35.00), give yourself not one 
moment's concern about them. I am poor, but 
must be much poorer, indeed, when I even 
think of demanding them.'' Lowell requited 
Poe's generosity very ungratefully, when, in 
A Fable for the Critics, he thus characterized 
his former friend: 

''There comes Poe with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge 
Three-fifth of him genius and two-fifth sheer fudge — 



4Z 



Cije poc QLult 



Who has written some things quite the best of their 

kind, 
But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the 

mind." 

Poe showed a great deal of ''heart" when 
he refused to ask Lowell for money due him 
for his contributions to The Pioneer, In re- 
turn for Lowell's base ingratitude, Poe de- 
nounced him as ''one of the most rabid of the 
Abolition fanatics — a fanatic simply for the 
sake of fanaticism/' 

In April, 1844, Poe again removed to New 
York, hoping to find a better field for his 
literary work than Philadelphia had proved 
since he retired from Graham's Magazine. On 
Saturday, April 13, within a week after his 
arrival in New York, the Sun, of that city, 
published his famous "Balloon Hoax/' In this 
extraordinary narrative, Poe anticipated the 
w^onderful achievements of the twentieth cen- 
tury in crossing the Atlantic. It created an im- 
mense sensation at the time. In the same 
month, "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains'' 
was published in Godey's Lady's Book, and, in 
June, his poem, "Dreamland," in Graham's 
Magazine. 

In the spring of 1844, Poe resumed his cor- 
respondence with James Russell Lowell. From 

48 



Cl^e poe Cult 



the first of these letters, dated May 24, 1844, 
we learn that six of his stories were in the 
hands of different editors waiting publication. 
Poe was an industrious, painstaking, fascinat- 
ing writer; he was known as the author of 
some of the best short stories that had ever 
been published in an American magazine yet, 
after ten years of unceasing work, he could 
not find a ready market for his writings, and 
when published, he received a wretched re- 
muneration for the highest kind of imagina- 
tive prose — compositions that have taken a 
front rank in the literature of the world. 

In October, 1844, Poe was engaged by N. P. 
Willis as assistant on the Evening Mirror. 
For a small weekly salary, the greatest Ameri- 
can writer was obliged to drudge seven hours 
in a corner of the Evening Mirror office — from 
nine to four — ''ready to be called upon for any 
of the miscellaneous work of the day.'' Willis 
furnishes the following tribute to his gifted 
''assistant": "With the highest admiration 
for his genius, and a willingness to let it atone 
for more than ordinary irregularity, we were 
led by common report to expect a very ca- 
pricious attention to his duties, and, occa- 
sionally, a scene of violence and difficulty. 
Time went on, however, and he was invariably 
punctual and industrious. With his pale, 

49 



Cfte poe Cult 



beautiful, intellectual face, as a reminder of 
what genius was in him, it was impossible, of 
course, not to treat him with deferential 
courtesy, and, to our occasional request that 
he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or 
that he would erase a passage colored too 
deeply with his resentments against society and 
mankind, he readily and courteously assented 
— far more yielding than most men, we 
thought, on points so excusably sensitive. With 
a prospect of taking the lead in another 
periodical, he, at last, voluntarily gave up his 
employment with us, and, through all this con- 
siderable period, we had seen but one present- 
ment of the man — a quiet, patient, industrious, 
and most gentlemanly person, commanding the 
utmost respect and good feeling by his un- 
varing deportment and ability/' 

The other periodical, in which he was ^'to 
take the lead,'' was The Broadway Journal^ a 
weekly paper which had been started m New 
York in January, 1845. I^ March, of that 
year, Poe became associate editor and one-third 
owner. In July, when the paper was slowly 
dying, Poe became its sole editor. Looking 
over the volumes of the Broadway Journal, I 
was astonished to see so many highly finished 
articles from his pen, at the very time, too, 
when his adored wife was ill, almost dying, and 

50 



Cl)e poe Cult 



when he himself was in poor health, and 
harassed by cares and troubles of all kinds. 

While Poe was still working for N. P. 
Willis as assistant on the Evening Mirror, he 
electrified the world by the publication of The 
Raven. This famous poem was originally pub- 
lished in The American Review — a New York 
Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art, and 
Science — in the number for February, 1845. 
It has been truly said that the first perusal 
of The Raven leaves no distinct impression 
upon the mind, but fascinates the reader with 
a strange and thrilling interest. It produces 
upon the mind and heart a vague impression 
of fate, of mystery, of hopeless sorrow. It 
sounds like the utterance of a full heart, poured 
out — not for the sake of telling its own sad 
story to a sjonpathetic ear — ^but because he is 
mastered by his emotions, and cannot help 
giving vent to them. It more resembles the 
soliloquies of Hamlet, in which he betrays his 
struggling thoughts and feelings, and in which 
he reveals the workings of his soul, stirred to 
its utmost depth by his terrible forebodings. 

Dr. Henry E. Shepherd, the distinguished 
Southern scholar, critic, and educationalist, 
has furnished the most admirable study of The 
Raven that has ever been written. After as- 
signing to Poe a place in that illustrious pro- 
Si 



Cfte poe Cult 



cession of classical poets, which includes Mil- 
ton, Ben Johnson, Herrick, Shelley and Keats, 
he says of The Raven: "No poem in our 
language presents a more griaceful grouping 
of metrical appliances and devices. The power 
of peculiar letters is evolved with a magnifi- 
cent touch; the thrill of the liquids is a char- 
acteristic feature, not only of the refrain, but 
throughout the compass of the poem; their 
Xinked sweetness long drawn out,' falls with a 
mellow cadence, revealing the poet's mastery 
of those mysterious harmonies which lie at the 
basis of human speech. The continuity of the 
rhythm, illustrating Milton's ideal of true 
musical delight, in which the sense is variously 
drawn out from one verse into another; the 
alliteration of the Norse minstrel and the 
Saxon bard; the graphic delineation and the 
sustained interest, are some of the features 
which place The Raven foremost among the 
creations of a poetic art in our age and clime." 
Dr. Shepherd, continuing his beautiful ad- 
dress, proceeded to show ''the versatile char- 
acter of Poe's genius, the consummate, as well 
as the conscious, art of his poetry, the grace- 
ful blending of the creative and the critical 
faculty — a combination perhaps the rarest that 
the history of literature affords — his want of 
a deference to prototypes or models, the chaste 

52 



Cfie poe Cult 



and scholarly elegance of his diction, the Attic 
smoothness and the Celtic magic of his 
style . . . Much of his work will perish 
only with the English language. His riper 
productions have received the most enthusias- 
tic tributes from the sober and dispassionate 
critics of the Old World. I shall ever remem- 
ber the thrill of grateful appreciation with 
which I read the splendid eulogium upon the 
genius of Poe in The London Quarterly Re- 
view J in which he is ranked far above his con- 
temporaries, and pronounced one of the most 
consummate literary artists of our era, poten- 
tially the greatest critic that ever lived, and 
possessing perhaps the finest ear for rhythm 
that was ever formed. You are doubtless fa- 
miliar with the impressions produced by The 
Raven upon the mind of Mrs. Browning, who 
has been called 'Shakespeare's daughter and 
Tennyson's sister.' It was but recently that 
one of the master spirits of the new poetic 
school has accorded to Poe the pre-eminence 
among American poets. Alfred Tennyson has 
expressed his admiration of our poet, who, 
with true poetic ken, was among the first to 
appreciate the novelty and delicacy of his 
method, and who, at a time when the 
Laureate's fame was obscured by adverse and 
undiscerning criticism, plainly foretold the 

S3 



Cl)e poe Cult 



serene* splendor of his matured greatness." 
The address of Dr. Shepherd was dehvered 
upon the occasion of the unveiHng of the Poe 
Monument in Baltimore on the 17th of Novem- 
ber, 1875. He concluded his remarks in the 
following lofty language: ''This graceful 
marble, fit emblem of our poet, is the expres- 
sion — perhaps unconscious, undesigned, but 
none the less effective, of sympathy with this 
grand intellectual movement of our era. While 
we pay the last tributes of respect to the 
memory of him who alone was worthy, among 
American poets, to be ranked in that illustrious 
procession of bards around whose names is 
concentrated so much of the glory of the Eng- 
lish tongue, from Chaucer to Tennyson, let us 
cherish the admonition to nurture and stimu- 
late the poetry of our land, until it ascend, 
'with no middle flight,' into the 'brightest 
heaven of invention,' and the region of the 
purest phantasy.'' 

Poe's own account of the composition of 
The Raven is one of the strangest revelations 
that any author has ever given to the world; 
indeed, it would be incredible if told by any 
other person than the poet himself. Setting 
out with the intention of composing a poem 
that should suit at once the popular and the 
critical taste, and keeping originality always 

54 



Ci)e poe Cult 



in view, the work proceeded, says Poe, step 
by step until its completion, with the precision 
and rigid consequences of a mathematical 
problem. One of Poe's peculiar theories be- 
ing that a long poem does not and cannot exist, 
he limited his poem to one hundred and eight 
lines. He next considered the impression, or 
effort, to be produced, and he declares that he 
kept steadily in view the design of rendering 
the work universally appreciable. Regarding 
beauty as the only legitimate province of 
poetry, and sadness as the highest manifesta- 
tion of its tone, he selected the idea of a lover 
lamenting the death of his beautiful beloved as 
the grand work of the poem. He then be- 
thought himself of some keynote, some pivot, 
upon which the whole structure might turn, 
and decided upon the refrain; determining to 
produce continuously novel effects by the varia- 
tion of the application of the refrain, the re- 
frain itself remaining, for the most part, un- 
varied. The next thing in order was to select 
a word which would be in the fullest possible 
keeping with the melancholy tone of the poem. 
The word ''nevermore'' was the very first that 
presented itself. Then it was necessary to 
have some pretext for the repetition of the 
one word, ''nevermore.'' The poet says he saw 
at once that it would not do to put the monot- 

55 



Cle Poe Cult 



onous word into the mouth of a human being. 
Immediately, the idea arose of a non-reason- 
ing creature capable of speech, and very 
naturally a parrot, in the first instance, sug- 
gested itself; but was superseded forthwith 
by a raven, as infinitely more in keeping with 
the intended melancholy tone. 

Having then decided upon the rhythm of 
the poem, the next point to be considered was 
the mode of bringing together the lover and 
the raven. The poet determined to place the 
lover in the chamber rendered sacred by 
memories of her who had frequented it. The 
bird v/as next to be introduced. The night 
was made tempestuous, to account for the 
raven's seeking admission, and also for the 
effect of contrast with the physical serenity 
within the chamber. The bird was made to 
alight on the bust of Pallas, also, for the effect 
of contrast between the marble and the 
plumage, the bust of Pallas being chosen as 
most in keeping with the scholarship of the 
lover. The poem then proceeds, in mournful 
but melodious numbers, to the denouement, 
when we are told the soul of the unhappy 
poet, from out the shadow of the raven, that 
lies floating on the floor, shall be lifted never- 
more. 

This is a mere outline of Poe's masterly 

S6 



Cfte Poe Cult 



analyvsis of his most extraordinary poem. The 
world should be grateful to the poet for his 
''confidential disclosures'' in regard to The 
Raven. With what delight would the world 
have welcomed Shakespeare's own account of 
the conception and composition of 'Xear," of 
"Macbeth/' of "Hamlet" ! 

Of all the writers of his time, Poe was the 
only one who could not have been foreseen. 
This of itself shows the originality of his 
work, and the strong, distinct individuality of 
his genius, which has given him a high place, 
not only in the literature of America, but in 
the literature of the world. The quantity of 
Poe's poetry is small, but, as has been said of 
it by a judicious critic, "its quality is perfect.'' 

The Raven established Poe's fame as the 
most original, the most remarkable of Ameri- 
can poets. The Edinburgh Review, in a harsh 
article, was forced to admit that, "The 
Raven has taken rank all over the world as 
the very first poem yet produced on the Ameri- 
can Continent." The poem has been trans- 
lated into most of the modern and several of 
the ancient languages. Stephen Mallarme 
translated and published, in Paris, a superbly 
illustrated edition of The Raven, in 1876. He 
sent Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman a copy of the 
volume, with a highly appreciative letter, from 

57 



Clje Poe Cult 



which I was permitted to make the following 
extracts : 

''Whatever is done to honor the memory of 
a genius the most truly sublime the world has 
ever seen, ought it not first to obtain your 
sanction? Such of Poe's works as our great 
Baudelaire has left untranslated, this is to say, 
the poems, and many of the critical fragments, 
I hope to make known to France, and my first 
attempt (The Raven) is intended to attract 
attention to a future work, now nearly com- 
pleted. . . . Fascinated with the works 
of Poe from my infancy, it is already a very 
long time since your name became associated 
with his in my earliest and most intimate 
sympathies/' In a letter addressed to one of 
his relatives in Baltimore, a few months after 
the publication of The Raven, Edgar Poe al- 
ludes, with just pride, to the renown which 
his poetical reputation had conferred upon the 
family name. A writer in the Southern Liter- 
ary Messenger declared with equal truth and 
beauty, that on the dusky wings of The Raven, 
Edgar A. Poe will sail securely over the gulf 
of oblivion to the eternal shore. So much in- 
terest has this immortal poem created in the 
world of letters, that it has caused a litera- 
ture of its own to be written. 

In the winter of 1845-6, the literary repu- 

58 



C!)e poe Cult 



tation of Edgar A. Poe had attained its 
greatest brilliancy. A cousin of the poet, 
Judge Neilson Poe, of Baltimore, told me that 
he visited him during that time, and Edgar, 
Virginia, and Mrs. Clemm formed the hap- 
piest little family he had ever seen. Edgar 
was sick at the time of the visit, and the visi- 
tor was invited to his chamber. He found the 
poet reclining on a lounge, with Mrs. Clemm 
and Virginia in attendance upon him. A small 
table by his side held three or four books, a 
bouquet of sweet flowers, and some delicacies. 
Mrs. Osgood and other ladies called. Edgar 
Poe, lying sick upon his lounge, was the centre 
of attraction. The conversation, in such com- 
pany, naturally took a literary turn. The in- 
valid poet directed it, and all listened, en- 
chanted by his low, rich, musical voice, and 
the brilliant play of his imagination. 

Mrs. Osgood, writing after Poe's death, 
speaking of her first acquaintance with Poe, 
soon after the publication of The Raven, said: 
''Of the charming love and confidence that ex- 
isted between his wife and himself, I cannot 
speak too earnestly, too warmly. It was in 
his own simple yet poetical home that, to me, 
the character of Edgar Poe appeared in its 
most beautiful light. Playful, affectionate, 
witty; alternately docile and wayward as a 

59 



Cf)e Poe Cult 



petted child; for his young, gentle, idoHzed 
wife, and for all who came, he had, even in 
the midst of the harassing literary work, a 
kind word, a pleasant smile, a graceful and 
courteous attention/' 

Poe was the most accompHshed literary man 
we have ever had. He possessed wonderful 
skill as a literary artist. All through his life 
he was refining and improving his work, and 
was never satisfied until he had made it as 
perfect as possible. Compare, for instance, 
''A Paean,'' of 1831, and 'Xenore," of 1843. 
The only fair way to examine an author is 
with the enthusiasm of a lover and the intel- 
ligence of a scholar. Poe has seldom been 
thus examined: His critics have been either 
devoted admirers w^ho could see no fault in 
him, or enemies who could see no good. An- 
other class of critics has appeared within the 
present generation who have examined him 
with a candid judgment and unprejudiced 
minds. These have not been his own country- 
men, except in rare cases, but the scholars of 
England, France and Germany. Poe showed 
his mastery of artistic composition in his re- 
markable restraint, in his wonderful concen- 
tration. Goethe says ''in his illiminations the 
master shows himself." 

In May, 1846, Poe commenced a prose dun- 

60 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



ciad in Godey's Lady's Book, his celebrated 
critical papers, ''The Literati of New York/' 
The majority of these 'Xiterati'' have passed 
to their merited oblivion, but the series, which 
ran from May to October, caused an immense 
sensation among the dunces and their friends 
as well as the reading public generally. Poe 
caused as much terror among the literary pig- 
mies as Gulliver caused among the Lilliputian 
pigmies. As the natural result of such just but 
severe criticism, he made a ''host of enemies 
among persons toward whom he entertained 
no personal ill-will.'' These little men and 
their friends nursed their wrath, and kept it 
warm until Poe died, then they attacked the 
character of the defenseless poet, inventing 
lies, grossly exaggerating the truth, and be- 
smirching the honor of him who was the soul 
of honor. Poe has been dead sixty years, yet 
these libels still live and circulate, and are be- 
lieved by ignorant or malicious persons, al- 
though they have been refuted a hundred 
times. 

Poe was one of the first American writers 
who appeared on the lecture platform. He 
possessed a personal magnetism which com- 
pletely fascinated his audience. His voice was 
beautifully modulated, his language was ele- 

6i 



Cl)e poe Cult 



gant, and his opinions were bold, original, and 
always forcefully expressed. His first lecture, 
or at least, the first one of which we have 
record, was delivered before the William Wirt 
Institute, in Philadelphia, on the 25th of No- 
vember, 1843. 'The subject was ''The Poets 
and Poetry of America/' It was in this lec- 
ture that Poe gave public utterance to his 
private opinion of Rufus W. Griswold's pre- 
tentious compilation, bearing a similar title to 
that of Poe's lecture. His criticism was just, 
but extremely severe, and excited much at- 
tention in Philadelphia, where both Poe and 
Griswold lived at the time. The latter person 
was highly indignant, and never forgave his 
assailant, but, although he took no notice of it 
at the time, he waited until Poe was in his 
grave, and then published the Memoir which 
has been pronounced one of the three most in- 
famous Memoirs ever written — the other two 
being Froude's Life of Carlyle, and Hogg's 
''Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir 
Walter Scott.'' 

Poe repeated the lecture on "The Poets and 
Poetry of America" in New York, on the 25th 
of February, 1845, after the publication of The 
Raven had made him famous. Of this lecture, 
he himself said: "I took occasion to speak 
what I know to be the truth. I told these 

62 



Cfte poe Cult 



gentlemen (the audience was composed chiefly 
of editors and pubHshers), with a few noble 
exceptions they had been engaged for many 
years in a system of indiscriminate praise and 
puffery of American books." 

As the summer of 1846 approached, the 
health of Mrs. Poe continued to decline, and 
dreading the effects of the city heat upon the 
already feeble health of the lovely and loved 
invalid, the little family removed to Fordham. 
The new home was a tiny Dutch cottage, con- 
taining four rooms, but it was cool, quiet, and 
away from the excitement and temptation of 
New York. The parlor was the poet's study. 
Here he wrote ''Ulalume,'' ''Eureka,'' and 
other productions of his ''lonesome, latter 
years." The room was neatly furnished: red 
and white matting covered the floor; four 
cane-seat chairs, a small table, a set of hanging 
bookshelves, and two or three engravings com- 
pleted the furniture. A lady, Mrs. Gove- 
Nichols, who visited Poe's cottage home, in 
1846, says: "There was an air of taste and 
gentility about the place that must have been 
lent to it by the presence of its inmates. So 
neat, so poor, so unfurnished, and yet so 
charming a dwelling I never saw. There was 
an acre or two of greensward fenced in about 
the house, as smooth as velvet, and as clean as 

63 



C!)e poe Cult 



the best-kept carpet. Mr. Poe was so hand- 
some, so impassive in his wonderful, intellec- 
tual beauty, so proud and reserved, so entirely 
a gentleman upon all occasions — ^^so good a 
talker that he impressed himself and his wishes 
even without words upon those with whom he 
spoke. His voice was melody itself. He 
always spoke low, even in a violent discussion, 
compelling his hearers to listen if they would 
know his opinion, his facts, fancies, or phi- 
losophy. Mrs. Poe looked very young ; she had 
large black eyes, and a pearly whiteness of 
complexion which was a perfect pallor. Her 
pale face, her brilliant eyes, and her raven 
hair gave her an unearthly look. One felt 
that she was almost a disrobed spirit, and when 
she coughed, it was made certain that she was 
rapidly passing away.' 



}} 



Darker and darker grew the shadows over 
the Fordham cottage — sadder and sadder 
grew the hearts of the devoted husband and 
mother as the autumn passed, and the winter 
of 1846-7 drew near. The sickness of his 
wife, and his own ill health incapacitated Poe 
from literary work, his only source of revenue, 
and, consequently, the family were reduced to 
the last extremity, wanting even the barest 
necessaries of life — at a time, too, when Mrs. 

64 



Cfje Poc Cult 



Poe required the little delicacies so grateful to 
the sick. At this, the darkest hour o£ Poe's 
life, an angel of mercy in the person of Mrs. 
Mary Louise Shew appeared on the scene, and 
relieved the wants of the family, and brought 
comfort to the sick room of the dying wife. 
I have not the heart to linger over the death- 
bed, which was as sad and pathetic as ever told 
by poet or romance writer. The weather was 
intensely cold — for it was midwinter — and 
Mrs. Poe suffered from the chills that followed 
the hectic fever of consumption. The bed was 
of straw, and covered only with spread and 
sheets; no blanket. Here the dying lady lay, 
wrapped in her husband's overcoat, with a 
large tortoise-shell cat in her bosom. The cat 
and the coat afforded the only warmth to the 
sufferer, except that imparted by her mother 
chafing her feet and her husband her hands. 
And thus died, on January 30, 1847, ^^ the 
early age of twenty-five, the wife of America's 
greatest genius. 

This loss, though long expected, was not the 
less crushing when it came at last. To a lady 
of Massachusetts, who had sent him expres- 
sions of sympathy, Edgar Poe wrote, a few 
weeks after his wife's death: ''I was over- 
whelmed by a sorrow so poignant as to de- 
prive me, for several weeks, of all power of 

65 



Cfje Poe Cult 



thoug-ht or action/' Mrs. Clemm told me that 
''Eddie'' often wandered to his wife's grave 
at midnight, in the snow and rain, and threw 
himself upon the mound of earth, calling upon 
her in words of devoted love, and invoking her 
gentle spirit to watch over him. It is now 
known that Edgar Poe was never the same 
man after the death of his idolized young wife. 
For weeks and months after that crushing 
sorrow, he was buried in an agony of grief, 
from which nothing could arouse him. His 
books and studies were abandoned; his pen 
was thrown aside; his usual occupations were 
neglected. He wandered up and down the 
country by day, and at night kept long and 
solitary vigil at the grave of his -'Lost 
Lenore." He who rarely smiled and never 
laughed before, now might almost be said to 
have ''never smiled again." The unhappy 
Master of the Raven, tortured by intolerable 
memories of the lost one, sought to drown his 
sorrow in the waters of Lethe. It was not for 
pleasure that he thus sank his noble intellect. 
"I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimu- 
lants to which I sometimes so madly indulge," 
he wrote within a year of his death. "It has 
not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have 
periled life and reputation and reason. It has 
been in the desperate attempt to escape from 

66 



Ci)c poe Cult 



torturing memories, from a sense of insuper- 
able loneliness^ and a dread of some strange, 
impending doom/' 

But it must not be supposed that this ''mad 
indulgence'' was habitual. It was only occa- 
sional, only when driven to despair by ''in- 
tolerable sorrow," that he was guilty of follies 
and excesses, "which," as he very justly com- 
plained, "are hourly committed by others with- 
out attracting any notice whatever." But he 
was famous — he was the author of The Raven 
— they were unknown, and, therefore, un- 
noticed. It is very easy for men who live in 
comfort, men who have no trials of poverty 
and sorrow, to condemn Edgar Poe as a 
drunkard; whereas, if the truth were known, 
he seldom drank, while they are regular 
drinkers, and for mere sensual gratification, 
but he only when driven to it by misery and 
despair. This is proved by the unimpeachable 
testimony of such persons as N. P. Willis, who 
was in daily intercourse with him for months, 
and saw nothing of the "frequent fits of in- 
toxication," of which his malicious biographer 
spoke; L. A. Wilmer, during an intimate 
friendship of twelve years, saw nothing of it; 
George R. Graham, who was associated with 
him daily for two years, saw nothing of it ; S. 
D. Lewis, the husband of Estelle Anna Lewis, 

67 



Cfte poe Cult 



and who lived in the closest intimacy with Poe, 
never saw him drink a glass of beer, wine, or 
liquor of any kind. In fact, it has been proved 
beyond a doubt, that it was only at rare in- 
tervals, and more especially after the death of 
his adored wife, that he indulged in stimu- 
lants at all. Upon these occasions, the lines in 
Dermody's ''Enthusiast,'' might be applied to 
Poe: 

''He who such polished lines so well could form, 
Was Passion's slave, Intoxication's child ; 

Now earth-enamored, a groveling worm, 

Now seraph-plumed, the wonderful, the wild." 

In the autumn of the year in which Poe lost 
his wife, he wrote that strange, mysterious, 
fascinating poem, ''Ulalume,'' which was pub- 
lished in the American Review, for December, 
1847. Willis copied the poem in the Home 
Journal, January i, 1848, with the following 
remarks: ''We do not know how many 
readers we have who will enjoy as we do this 
exquisitely piquant and skillful exercise of 
variety and niceness of language. It is a poem 
full of beauty — a curiosity (and a delicious 
one, we think), in philologic flavor.'' When 
Willis wrote this notice, it was not known that 
Poe was the author of the poem, v/hich was 
published anonymously. Mrs. Whitman, speak- 
ing of this strange threnody, says : ''This poem, 

68 



C!)e Poe Cult 



perhaps the most original and weirdly suggest- 
ive of all his poemSj resembles, at first sight, 
some of Turner's landscapes, being, appar- 
ently, without form, and void, and having 
darkness on the face of it. It is, nevertheless, 
in its basis, although not in the precise cor- 
respondence of time, simply historical. Such 
was the poet's lonely midnight walk; such, 
amid desolate memories and sceneries of the 
hour, was the new-born hope enkindled within 
his heart at the sight of the morning star — 
'Astarte's be-diamond crescent' — booming up 
as the beautiful harbinger of love and happi- 
ness, yet awaiting him in the untried future," 
etc. 

The original autograph of ''Ulalume" was 
sold at auction, in New York, several years 
ago, which contained a stanza that was sup- 
pressed before the poem was published. Poe 
once recited the whole poem at an evening 
gathering in Richmond, Va. One of the 
guests. Miss Susanna Ingram, was deeply af- 
fected, but confessed that she could not under- 
stand it at a first hearing, and asked the 
privilege of seeing it in manuscript. The next 
morning Poe sent her a copy of the poem ac- 
companied by a characteristic note, which runs 
as follows: "Monday evening. I have tran- 
scribed 'Ulalume' with much pleasure, dear 

69 



Cfte Poe Cult 



Miss Ingram, as I am sure I would do any- 
thing at your bidding, but I fear you will find 
the verses scarcely more intelligible to-day in 
my manuscript than last night in my recita- 
tion. I would endeavor to explain to you what 
I really meant by the poem if it were not that 
I remember Dr. Johnson's bitter and rather 
just remarks about the folly of explaining 
what, if worth explaining, would explain itself. 
He has a happy witticism, too, about some book 
which he calls 'as obscure as an explanatory 
note.' Leaving 'Ulalume' to its fate, there- 
fore, and in good hands, I am yours truly, 
Edgar A. Poe." 

Although Poe published only this one poem 
in 1847 — his ''most immemorial year,'' his 
busy brain was not idle. It was during the 
last months of that year "Eureka" was 
planned, thought out, and mostly written. Mrs. 
Clemm told me that, when engaged upon the 
composition of this extraordinary prose-poem, 
he would walk up and down the porch in front 
of the cottage in the coldest nights of Decem- 
ber, with an overcoat thrown over his shoul- 
der, gazing at the stars, and "pondering the 
deep problem" of the universe, until long after 
midnight. Having finished "Eureka," Poe 
used it as a lecture, which he delivered in New 
York on Thursday evening, February 3, 1848. 

70 



Cfie poe Cult 



The night was stormy, but there was present a 
''select but highly appreciative audience that 
remained attentive and interested for nearly 
three hours, under the lecturer's powerful, 
able, and profound analytical exposition of his 
peculiar theory on the origin, creation, and 
final destiny of the universe/' ''Mr. Poe's de- 
livery" was described as "pure, finished, and 
chaste in style; his power of reasoning acute, 
his analytic perceptions keen. The lecturer ap- 
peared inspired; his eyes seemed to glow like 
those of his own Raven." 

The special object of the lecture was to ob- 
tain funds to start The Stylus, a magazine in 
which he intended "to maintain a sincere and 
fearless opinion," and "absolutely independent 
criticism," guided by the "intelligible laws of 
art." 

Having failed to make any money by 
"Eureka" as a lecture, he determined to pub- 
lish it in book form. Having carefully re- 
vised and enlarged it, that generous patron of 
literature, George P. Putnam, published the 
work in the Spring of 1848. "Eureka" was 
the most ambitious production of Poe's pen, 
and the least successful. 

Early in the Summer of 1848, Poe visited 
Richmond, and became acquainted with John 
R. Thompson, the editor of the Southern 

71 



Cfte Poe Cult 



Literary Messenger, who engaged him to write 
for the magazine. The September number 
contained an elaborately eulogistic review of 
Mrs. Estelle Anna Lewis's poems; and the 
October number was enriched by Poe's famous 
^^The Rationale of Verse.'' While in Rich- 
mond, at this time, he renewed his acquaint- 
ance with his early sweetheart, Elmira Roy- 
ster (now Mrs. Shelton, a rich widow). 
Rumor has it that he was about to engage 
himself to this lady when he received a com- 
plimentar}^ poem from Mrs. Sarah Helen 
Whitman, whom he had first seen in 1845, 
when he was returning from Boston to New 
York, and had stopped in Providence en route. 
The two had never met until in October, 1848, 
when Poe, provided with a letter of introduc- 
tion, called upon her, and after a short ac- 
quaintance of forty-eight hours, asked her to 
marry him. As the story of Poe's affair with 
Mrs. Whitman is told at length in other por- 
tions of this volume, it need not be repeated 
here; suffice it to say that they were engaged, 
and were on the eve of being married, when 
the engagement was broken off forever. Mrs. 
Whitman died on the 27th of June, 1878, re- 
maining to the last an enthusiastic admirer 
and defender of Edgar A. Poe. 

72 



Cfte Poe Cult 



Edgar Poe passed the Winter and Spring 
of 1849 ^t his cottage in Fordham. The only- 
variety in the monotony of his secluded life 
was the occasional visit of a friend, or a visit 
of a few days by Mrs. Clemm and himself to 
their friend, Mrs. Estelle Anna Lewis, in 
Brooklyn. 

On the 30th of June, 1849, Po^ departed 
from this lady's house, where he and Mrs. 
Clemm had passed the previous night, on his 
last journey to the South. July, August and 
September were spent in Richmond and Nor- 
folk, and in both cities he delivered his lecture 
on ''The Poetic Principle," and was every- 
where received with cordial appreciation. In 
September he became engaged to Mrs. Shel- 
ton, and he wrote to Mrs. Clemm that his 
marriage would take place on the 17th of Octo- 
ber. This letter, although announcing the 
^'happy event," was very sad, as though the 
writer was oppressed by a sense of impending 
doom. On Tuesday, the 2d of October, he 
left Richmond by boat for Baltimore, where 
he arrived the next morning. His intention 
was to go to Fordham and to bring Mrs.' 
Clemm to Richmond for his wedding. He told 
her to be ready to return with him on the loth, 
that he had determined to pass the rest of his 
life amid the scenes of his happy youth. What 

73 



Cl)e poe Cult 



became of Poe, after he arrived in Baltimore 
on that October morning, will probably never 
be known. It was an election day. His 
cousin, the late Judge Neilson Poe, told me 
that, on the evening of October 3d, he was in- 
formed that a gentleman named Poe was in a 
back room of the Fourth Ward polls, on Lom-' 
bard Street, between High and Exeter Streets. 
On going there, he found Edgar Poe in a 
state of stupefaction. He was told that his 
cousin had been ''cooped^^ and voted all over 
the city. The dying poet was taken to the 
Washington College Hospital, on Broadway, 
now the Church Home and Infirmary. There, 
on the following Sunday, October 7th, he 
died;, and was buried the next afternoon at four 
o'clock. It was a dull, cold, dreary day — such 
a day as he had described in 'Ulalume' :'' 

"The skies they were ashen and sober, 
The leaves they were crisped and sere." 



74 






T^ 




CJ 








'O 




.^ 




a; 


J 


o 


<^ 


' 






H 


<u 


H- ( 


•— - 


(1h 




m 


^ 


O 


o 


K 


^ 


►^ 


c 


H 






?: 


ga 


o 
o 


►^ ^ 




^ 








^K 


■^ 


:dc^ 


r/) 


CJ 


1^ 


S^ 


O 




c 


WH 




J J 




J< 


s-l 


CM 


!U 


U 








;^ 


rt 


o 


^ 


H 


o 


C 


-o 


^ 


i 


h^ 






Tl 


'Ji 


U 


<^ 




> 


■M 


^ 






>» 




X! 












X 



Cfje poe Cult 



THE POE CULT. 

One of the most astonishing facts in the 
literary annals of America, if not of the world, 
is the amazing rise of what may be called the 
Poe cult. The unhappy master of ''The 
Raven'' was the victim of a fate more strange, 
more romantic, more tragical than poet ever 
imagined or novelist ever penned. His life 
was one of suffering, sorrow, and song; he 
died a wretched death in a public hospital, 

Unwept, unhonored, unsung. 
His funeral was pathetic in its meagre at- 
tendance, its scant ceremony and absence of 
mourning. Only eight persons were present 
at the funeral of one of the immortals of 
earth. 

At the time of this humble funeral, on Octo- 
ber 8, 1849, no one could have dreamed that 
within twenty-five years Edgar Poe would be 
regarded by the cultured people of all lands as 
the most unique and remarkable genius in 
American literature. Equally astonishing is 
the fact that many persons who were old 
enough to remember Poe are still alive, when 
his letters possess a market value of five times 

75 



Clie Poe Cult 



as great as that of Byron's, twice as great as 
Shelley's, a hundred times as great as Bry- 
ant's, Longfellow's, Lowell's, and other con- 
temporaneous American authors. Still more 
remarkable is the fact that the manuscripts of 
those poems, for which he received trifling 
sums, have become as precious as the Sibylline 
leaves, and are worth their weight in gold. If 
the original manuscript of ''The Raven" were 
still in existence, American millionaires would 
contend for its possession, and $10,000 would 
be gladly paid for the inestimable treasure. 
Yet, for this poem, which has brought more 
honor upon American literature than any 
other single American poem, and established 
Poe's fame as the most original of America 
poets — a poem which stands alone in poetr 
as the ''Venus" in sculpture and "The Trans 
figuration" in painting — for this wonderful 
poem whose weird and mysterious fascination 
has thrilled the w^orld, Poe was paid only ten 
dollars, a sum which is now paid for an ordi- 
nary love story in a weekly newspaper. 

Upon the rare occasions when the first edi- 
tions of Poe's poems have been offered for sale 
at auction, the excitement has run high, the 
bidding has been spirited, and the prices have 
broken the record. The first edition of Tamer- 
lane and Other Poems (Boston, 1827), was 

76 




Cfte Poe Cult 



never offered at public auction until the Spring 
of 1892. In fact, for sixty years, one copy 
only, and that an iqiperfect one, was known to 
exist, and that was in the locked room of the 
British Museum, there to stay ''for evermore/' 
So when it was announced that a second copy 
of the precious volume was to be sold at 
auction, the excitement among wealthy collec- 
tors was great. As no copy had ever been 
sold, there was no record price. The bidding 
was high and rapid — $500, $750, $1,000, $1,- 
500, $1,750; finally the tiny paper volume of 
forty pages, whose intrinsic value was about 
ten cents, was knocked down for the enormous 
sum of $1,850. The purchaser, proud of his 
prize, sent it to Paris and had it bound in 
mosaic at a cost of $300. In the Spring of 
1894 another copy of the first edition of 
Tamerlane was discovered by an obscure 
young lawyer in an obscure town in Vermont. 
The finding of a third copy naturally lessened 
the value of the work as a unique or rare 
book, and when it was offered to several per- 
sons who are interested in literary curios, no 
offer above $1,200 could be secured for it. 
What became of that copy of Tamerlane I 
have no means of knowing. In the Autumn 
of 1900, a copy was sold at auction, bringing 
the record price of $2,050. 

77 



Cl^e Poe Cult 



The immense price paid for an exemplar of 
the first edition of Tamerlane shows the re- 
markable advance that has taken place in the 
value of Poeana during the last ten years. But 
all records were broken in this respect at the 
sale of Mr. Frederick William French's 
library on the 23d, 24th and 25th of April, 
1901. The second edition of Tamerlane, 
Baltimore, 1829, a beautiful copy in the origi- 
nal boards, uncut, was sold to a dealer for 
$1,300, an advance of $200 on the price of the 
McKee copy sold in November, 1900. No. i 
of the Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe, con- 
taining ''The Murders in the Rue Morgue'' 
and ''The Man that Was Used Up" in the 
original brown paper wrapper's, brought an 
even $1,000; an enormous price, but only two 
copies are known to be in existence. Two 
autograph letters of Poe's at the same sale 
fetched, respectively, $250 and $210. 

In mentioning these fabulous prices paid for 
Poe rarities, I cannot help thinking that the 
pity of it is that the unhappy master of "The 
Raven'^ should have lived in poverty, often in 
absolute want, when the price of one of his 
rare editions would have made him com- 
fortable for years; when the price of one of 
his autograph letters would have provided 
heat to warm the benumbed limbs of his dying 

78 



C|e poe Cult 



wife, wine to stimulate her physical weakness, 
and delicate food to nourish her body, ex- 
hausted by consumption. 

Mr. William Nelson, of Paterson, New 
Jersey, a few years ago, was fortunate enough 
to secure the original manuscript of ''The 
Bells" for $275. He is an enthusiastic Poe 
man, and his collection contains several first 
editions; also, The Southern Literary Mes- 
senger and Graham's Magazine, of both of 
which Poe was editor. He has also a large and 
interesting collection of newspaper clippings 
relating to Poe, running from a single para- 
graph to long editorials. Mr. Nelson has spent 
much time and money in forming his collec- 
tion, but when the Poe mania takes possession 
of a man, time counts for nothing, and money 
is thrown away with reckless prodigality.* 

The Poe cult is progressive : beginning with 
admiration of his melodious poems and ex- 
traordinary prose tales, the adm^iration of the 
poetry leads to an enthusiasm for the poet and 
an interest in everything relating to him. The 
shabby little homes in which he lived, and 
loved, and worked, become pilgrims' shrines. 
The few books which he owned become 
precious rehcs. When the old Allan mansion 



*Smce the above was written, Mr. Nelson has sold kis Poe 
rarities, "The Bells" bringing $2,100. 



79 



Cfje Poe Cult 



in Richmond, Virginia, was pulled down a few 
years ago, there was a pretty scramble for Poe 
relics, for in that house Poe's happy childhood 
and youth were passed. Thirty dollars was 
asked for the mantelpiece of the poet's room, 
thirty-five for the bureau, five for the lock, 
etc. The cane with which old Mr. Allan, Poe's 
adopted father, threatened to strike the way- 
ward poet if he did not leave the house after 
their irreconcilable quarrel, should have 
brought a fabulous price could it have been 
found among the curios collected there. Had 
any of Poe's juvenile verses been discovered, 
they would have brought hundreds, yes, thou- 
sands of dollars. What became of those 
precious manuscripts containing poems to his 
boyish sweethearts will never be known. 

It is strange that there are so few of Poe's 
letters in existence, for he was a voluminous 
letter writer, and had many correspondents 
among the literary men and women of his 
time. The late Judge Neilson Poe, of Balti- 
more, who was a cousin of the poet, had 
several very interesting letters from Edgar 
Poe, which I have seen. These disappeared 
soon after the Judge's death, and have never 
been traced. Their publication would throw 
much light on certain periods of Poe's life. 
Mrs, Clemm was in possession of several 

80 



Cije Poe Cult 



valuable Poe letters and other things at the 
time of her death in Baltimore, on February 
1 6, 1 87 1. These also disappeared, no one 
knows whither. 

The present Poe cult commenced at the time 
of the unveiling of the monument to the poet 
in Baltimore on the 17th of November, 1875. 
It was a memorable occasion, not only for 
American literature, but for the literature of 
the world. It was the first recognition of the 
extraordinary genius of the author of ''The 
Raven.'' It drew together a notable as- 
semblage, including several who had been as- 
sociated with Poe in his youth and early man- 
hood. Among these were Professor Joseph H. 
Clarke, Poe's first teacher in Richmond, who 
died in Baltimore in 1886, in the ninety-second 
year of his age; John H. B. Latrobe, the dis- 
tinguished Southern lawyer, the last survivor 
of the three gentlemen, who, by awarding to 
Poe the prize for the best prose tale, gave him 
the first lift up the literary ladder; John H. 
Hewett, the editor of the Saturday Visitor, in 
which the prize story, ''The Manuscript Found 
in a Bottle,'' was published; Dr. John E. Snod- 
grass, the last editor of the Saturday Visitor, 
and associate editor of the American Museum, 
in which several of Poe's early poems and tales 
were published; Dr. Nathan Covington 

81 



Clje poe Cult 



Brooks, editor of the American Museum; 
Doctor John G. Morris, president of the Mary« 
land Historical Society; Nathaniel H. Mori- 
son, Provost of the Peabody Institute, Balti- 
more; Judge Neilson Poe, the nearest sur- 
viving relative of the poet; and Walt Whit- 
man, the last in name, but first in fame. (An 
extended account of the unveiling of the Poe 
monument is given in a later article in this 
volume, entitled, ''The Truth about Edgar 
Allan Poe.") 

Dr. Johnson said that Oliver Goldsmith 
touched nothing which he did not ornament. 
It can be as truly said of Poe that he touched 
nothing which he did not immortalize. The 
room at the University of Virginia, where he 
spent a few months of his early manhood, is 
more frequently visited than are the dormi- 
tories of the long line of orators, statesmen 
and scholars who were educated at that cele- 
brated seat of learning. Every magazine 
with which he was associated, either as editor 
or contributor— GraAam'^, Godey's, the South- 
ern Literary Messenger and other periodicals 
— has been remembered simply because Poe's 
name was connected with it. The little cottage 
at Fordham, where the saddest years of his life 
were spent^ — those lonesome latter years after 
the death of his wife — is visited by strangers 

82 



Cfee poe Cult 



from distant lands because it was the home of 
the poet, where, wifeless, moneyless, hopeless, 
he made his last desperate, despairing strug- 
gle with pitiless fortune. His tomb in West- 
minster churchyard, Baltimore, where the 
poet's '^tantalized spirit blandly reposes," has 
made the spot the 'Toefs Corner" of the 
Westminster of the Monumental City. Men 
and women's names have been saved irom 
oblivion because they were in some way or 
other associated with Poe, either as friends or 
enemies. The gentle Mrs. Osgood, the ma- 
lignant Griswold, the devoted Mrs. Whitman, 
the ferocious Briggs, the genial General Wet- 
more, the accomplished John R. Thompson, 
and many others will occur to all students of 
the life and works of the author of ''The 
Raven." 

Carlyle regarded it as a remarkable fact 
that six lives of Burns had been published 
within a generation after his death. Within 
the same space of time, nine lives of Poe were 
published, while several others have been is- 
sued during the last decade. These numerous 
biographies show that the Poe cult is ever on 
the increase, and that the reading public wel- 
comes every addition to its knowledge of the 
most interesting and picturesque figure in 
American literature. 

83 



Cfie poc Cult 



The Poe cult is not confined to any one, two 
or three countries. It has spread through the 
civihzed world. It includes the cultured peo- 
ple of Europe, America, and in the lands be- 
yond the sea. It has made Edgar A. Poe a 
classic. Numerous editions of his works have 
been published in London and Edinburgh. In 
France he is as much admired as many French 
authors. A dozen editions of his poems and 
tales have appeared in Germany ; his tales have 
been published in Spain and Italy; his poetical 
works in Austraha; and one of his stories, 
''The Oval Portrait,'' has been translated into 
modern Greek and published at Athens. The 
end of the Poe cult cannot be foretold. It 
has not reached its height. Even while I 
write, a new edition of his works in seventeen 
volumes has been pubHshed. 

It should always be remembered that the 
Poe cult owes its origin and stimulus to the 
gifted and fearless Sarah Helen Whitman. 
When malice had exhausted itself in heaping 
insult upon the name of the dead poet, it was 
the delicate affection of Mrs. Whitman — who 
loved him and whom he loved — that dared to 
penetrate the ''mournful corridors'' of that 
sad, desolate heart, with its "halls of tragedy 
and chambers of retribution," and tell the true, 
but melancholy, story of the author of "The 

84 



Cfje poe Cult 



Raven/^ It was she who generously came 
forward as ''One of the Friends" of him who 
was said to have no friends. She was his 
steady champion from first to last. Whether 
it was some crack-brained scribbler who tried 
to prove Poe ''mad/' or some accomplished 
scholar who endeavored to disparage him in 
order to magnify some other writer, or some 
silly woman who attempted to foist herself 
into a little brief notice by relating "imaginary 
facts" about the poet's hidden life, Mrs. Whit- 
man was always ready to defend her dead 
friend. 

After a long and exhaustive study of the 
life of Edgar A. Poe during a quarter of a 
century, I have come to the conclusion that 
he was neither the demon painted by some of 
his early, nor the angel described by some of 
his later biographers. He mingled among 
men neither as a "prying fiend" nor as a "be- 
wildered angel." He was a man of rare and 
remarkable genius, with the infirmities that 
often accompany it. While endowed with ex- 
traordinary intellectual gifts, he was a most 
unfortunate victim of circumstances. Left 
an orphan in his infancy, he was adopted by 
a man who reared him in luxury as the heir 
of a splendid fortune, when suddenly, in his 
twentieth year, he was thrown upon the world 

85 



Cf)e pee Cult 



without a dollar. Then began that long, des- 
perate, never-ending struggle for bread. The 
pen was his weapon, literature his pursuit, 
poverty his fate, fame his reward. 



86 



C!je Poe Cult 



POE : REAL AND REPUTED. 

We are told that 
''Seven Grecian cities claimed Homer dead, 
In which the living Homer begged his bread/* 

It is not so astonishing that the birthplace 
of the Father of Poetry should be unknown, 
for he lived at the dawn of literature, at a 
prehistoric period; but it is strange that so 
famous a poet as Edgar A. Poe — a poet of 
our own century, of our country, and almost 
of our own age — should have lived and died a 
mystery to his contemporaries, and remain in 
many respects a mystery still, although nearly 
sixty years have elapsed since his death, and 
nine lives of him have been written. 

For twenty years after his death, the time 
of his birth was unknov/n, and the place of his 
birth was uncertain. The present writer knew 
Mrs. Clemm, the poet's aunt and ''more than 
mother,'' in her last years ; she said positively 
that "Eddie was born on the 19th of January, 
1809, ^t Boston." Thus, Poe was one of that 
illustrious group whose genius was the glory 
of the nineteenth century: Tennyson, Glad- 

87 



Cle poe Cult 



stone, Holmes, and Mrs. Browning, the great- 
est of all poetesses. At the time of our 
poet's birth, Byron, Scott, Shelley, Coleridge, 
Southey, Campbell, and Tom Moore had re- 
vived the glory of the ''elder day'' of English 
poetry, and ''the delusive splendor that had so 
long gilded the Augustan age of Anne paled 
before the comprehensive culture, the marvel- 
ous intellectual expansion, that distinguished 
the first thirty years of the present century."* 
Not since the "spacious times of great Eliza- 
beth" had the English language been enriched 
by so brilliant a galaxy of poets. 

For several years after Poe's death, his 
grave was unknown, and for more than a 
quarter of a century no stone marked the rest- 
ing-place of the poet whose genius has con- 
ferred more glory upon American literature 
than any other American writer. Strangers 
from far-off countries came to Baltimore and 
visited Poe's grave as a pilgrim's shrine, and 
great was their astonishment when they dis- 
covered, after much inquiry and diligent 
search, the poet's grave in a neglected spot of 
an obscure churchyard. 

Poe was a most refined and cultured gentle- 



*From Prof. Henry E. Shepherd's Address at the Unveiling 
of the Poe Monument in Baltimore, November 17, 1875. 

88 



Ctie Poe Cult 



man, whose friends were the purest and love- 
liest ladies in the land — a man whose society- 
was sought by all who admired genius and 
pitied the misfortunes that often attend it. 

Tom Moore had his Russell, Carlyle his 
Froude, Poe his Griswold. Rufus W. Gris- 
wold was the self-chosen biographer of Poe, 
and he produced the most infamous biography 
that has ever been published in any language. 
Lies were invented, facts falsified, the truth 
tortured into falsehood, and everything was 
done to blast forever the poet's memory. 

Upon this unscrupulous memoir the author 
of ''The Raven" has been misjudged by many 
persons for more than fifty years. It is much 
easier to start a falsehood than to stop it when 
once on its travels. No man has suffered 
more from slander, Hving and dead, than Ed- 
gar A. Poe. I have been at much trouble in 
order to obtain the truth about the poet, from 
his earliest years to his tragical death. I have 
consulted with the living, and unearthed the 
opinions of the dead, and this is the result: 

When a schoolboy in Richmond, Poe's 
teacher was Prof. Joseph H. Clarke, who, 
in speaking of his famous pupil, described him 
as having a ''tender and sensitive heart''; he 
said he was "a boy who would do anything to 
serve a friend," and that "his nature was en- 

89 



Clbe Poe Cult 



tirely free from selfishness, the most common 
fault of boyhood/' One of his classmates, 
Col. John T. L. Preston, late professor at 
the Virginia Military Institute, says that Ed- 
gar A. Poe was ''a generous, free-hearted boy, 
kind to his companions, and always ready to 
assist them with hand and head/' 

I quote these estimates of Poe because they 
show that he possessed the very qualities which 
have been denied him, namely, kindness of 
heart, and an unusual freedom from selfish- 
ness. 

The most malignant enemy of Poe accuses 
him of but one vice, and with injustice un- 
paralleled, makes what was an occasional fall, 
an habitual sin. Upon this subject we have 
the testimony of many witnesses of unimpeach- 
able integrity. 

T. W. Gibson, his roommate at West Point, 
describes the class of 1830 as having many 
wild fellows in it, but he says that he does not 
think 'Toe was intoxicated while at the Acad- 
emy.'' N. P. Willis, with whom he was asso- 
ciated for six months in editing the Nezv York 
Mirror, testifies to his regular attendance at 
the office, and his perfect propriety of conduct ; 
Lambert A. Wilmer, during an intimate 
friendship of twelve years, saw nothing of 
his alleged dissipated habits; George R. Gra- 

90 



CJie Poe Cult 



ham, who was in daily intercourse with him 
for two years, saw nothing of it. 

George Gilfillan, an extravagant EngHsh 
writer, long since forgotten, who was nothing 
if not sensational, published, in the London 
Critic, a brutally unjust article on Poe, charg- 
ing him with having ''no heart, no honorable 
feelings, not having even one virtue linked to 
his thousand crimes''; denounced him as a 
''combination of the fiend, the brute, and the 
genius''; declaring that ''his tongue was set 
afire of hell"; that he "rushed into every ex- 
cess of riot"; ending his monstrous tirade of 
lies by the assertion that Poe "caused the death 
of his wife that he might have a fitting theme 
for 'The Raven,' "repeating what a more po- 
etical, but not more truthful writer had al- 
ready said — that the poet "deliberately sought 
his wife's death that he might embalm her 
memory in immortal dirges." Gilfillan did not 
know or care that "The Raven" was written 
more than a year before the event happened 
which the poem was said to commemorate. 

Boyd, the "Country Parson," after calling 
Poe "a black sheep," censuring him for his 
"drunken degradation" and "inveterate self- 
ishness," coolly adds that he "starved his wife 
and broke her heart." Why these writers 
should malign the unofifending dead is 

91 



Cfte poe Cult 



stranger than the fiction that they invented for 
their purpose. We can only account for it upon 
the supposition that slander loves a shining 
mark. The splendid and ever-increasing fame 
of Poe made him a shining mark, and many, 
who would not have dared to attack him while 
he was alive, have since his death shot their 
poisoned arrows at him — ''Mortuo leoni et 
lepores insultant,'' which may be freely ren- 
dered ''asses kicking at a dead lion.'' 

Poe's love for his child-wife, and his devo- 
tion to her in sickness, was one of the most 
beautiful traits in his character, remarked and 
admired by all who knew the poet and his lit- 
tle family. Even Griswold, who seldom found 
anything to admire in Poe, speaks of calling 
upon the poet, once in Philadelphia, and find- 
ing him worn out from long attendance at the 
sick bed of his wife. 

There is nothing sadder in romance — noth- 
ing more pathetic in poetry, nothing more 
touching in real life, than the deathbed of Vir- 
ginia Poe. She died in midwinter, and her 
disease was consumption. The weather was 
intensely cold, and the dying woman suffered 
terribly from the chills that followed the hec- 
tic fever of that insidious malady. She lay 
upon a straw bed, her only covering being a 
spread and sheets, no blankets. In this piti- 

92 



C!)e Poe Cult 



able condition, dying by inches, the only 
warmth that relieved her ahnost freezing body 
was imparted by her husband's overcoat, in 
which she was wrapped, and a large tortoise- 
shell cat in her bosom. At her head stood the 
poet chafing her hands, while her mother 
rubbed her feet. Thus died, at the early age 
of twenty-five, the wife of the poet who has 
conferred such lustre upon American litera- 
ture. 

The lovely and gifted Mrs. Frances Sargent 
Osgood, who was a favorite visitor at the 
home of the poet, wrote a sketch of Poe, a 
few weeks before her own early death, in 
which she said: ''Of the charming confidence 
that existed between Poe and his wife, I can- 
not speak too earnestly, too warmly. I be- 
lieve she was the only woman he ever truly 
loved; and this is evidenced by the exquisite 
little poem, 'Annabel Lee,' of which she was 
the subject, and which is by far the most ten- 
der and touchingly beautiful of all his songs. 
The most lovely of its verses describes in lan- 
guage of true poetical beauty the death of the 
loved and unforgotten wife: 

The wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 

My beautiful Annabel Lee. 
So that her high-born kinsmen came 

And bore her away from me.' '* 

93 



Cfte poe Cult 



A more than sufficient answei to the cruel 
and reckless assertion that Poe treated his wife 
unkindly is found in the fact that Mrs. Clemm, 
Virginia's mother, loved her son-in-law wkh 
more than maternal devotion, and never de- 
serted him in sickness, in poverty, in distress; 
that she fondly cherished his memory during 
her life, and in dying, asked to be buried by 
the side of her ''darling Eddie/' I assert this 
of my own knowledge. 

After the death of his wife, Poe became ac- 
quainted with Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, 
whom he had previously seen and admired. 
He first saw her, one moonlight night, when 
he was visiting Providence, where she lived. 
Jt was midnight; the poet was passing her 
home, when he saw her strolling in the garden. 
She was clad all in white. The place, the hour, 
the scene, made an immediate and indelible 
impression upon his poetical imagination, and 
he related the circumstance in one of his most 
beautiful poems, worthy of himself, of her, 
and of the most exalted passion. Some time 
after this he met her, and after a short but 
ardent courtship, they became engaged, but the 
affair was broken off upon the eve of the mar- 
riage. 

Mrs. Whitman survived her poet-lover 
twenty-eight years. When they parted for- 

94 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



ever, not in sorrow, or in anger, her last words 
were, ''I love you." That she loved him truly, 
sincerely, faithfully, she proved during all the 
years that elapsed between his death and hers. 
She was his defender at all times, and under 
all circunystances. Perhaps the most passion- 
ate poems ever penned by any American poet 
were inspired by the memory of her dead but 
un forgotten lover. 



95 



C[)e poe Cult 



THE BOYHOOD OF EDGAR A. POE. 

If, as the poet says, the child is father to the 
man, the strange and romantic story of the 
youth of Edgar A. Poe must be both interest- 
ing and instructive to readers, young and old. 
Poe's parents were actors, and he was born 
almost in the greenroom. His wanderings, 
which never ceased, began five weeks after his 
birth, when he w^as taken to the home of his 
paternal grandfather in Baltimore. 

During the next two years, young Edgar 
accompanied his parents on their professional 
tour ; going from city to city, knowing neither 
the happiness nor the comforts of a home, but 
suif ering often from cold, and sometimes from 
hunger. Before he was three years old, he 
was left an orphan by the almost simultaneous 
death of both of his parents, the mother in 
Richmond, and the father in Norfolk, Va. 
Mr. Allan, a rich, childless merchant of the 
former city, attracted by the beauty and pre- 
cocious wit of the little fellow, adopted him. 
The change which now took place in Edgar's 

96 



I 



Cfte poe Cult 



life reads like a fairy tale: from poverty, want, 
and misery, he passed to a home of luxury, 
where he soon became the idol of the house, 
being treated as a young prince, clothed in 
velvet, and faring sumptuously every day. 
His proud, imperious temper, instead of being 
controlled, was encouraged; his voice soon be- 
came the law of the house. The boy was 
bright, clever, and fascinating, and his adopted 
father petted and spoiled him by over indul- 
gence, and by unduly stimulating his natural 
gifts. He was early taught dancing, drawing, 
and dramatic recitation, and before he was six 
years old, was made a sort of show-child, be- 
ing brought into the parlor to entertain the 
company by reciting speeches and dramatic 
pieces. This was all wrong, and Mr. Allan, 
while amusing his guests, was injuring the 
boy for life. 

When Edgar was sent to school, the teacher 
was forbidden to punish him. Adjoining the 
play ground was a vegetable garden, which the 
boys were not allowed to enter under the pen- 
alty of wearing a turnip, carrot, or cabbage 
around the neck during school hours. One 
day Edgar violated the rule, and was com- 
pelled to wear one of the vegetables suspended 
around his neck. After school, he ran home 
still wearing the obnoxious carrot, or turnip. 

97 



Cfte Poe Cult 



Mr. Allan was incensed that his boy should be 
treated so disrespectfully. He went at once to 
the school, and, after lecturing the teacher, 
paid what was due, and took the child from 
school. 

Mr. Allan passed part of the Summer at the 
White Sulphur Springs, then as now the most 
fashionable watering place in the South. Here 
young Edgar shone brilliantly with his fine 
clothes, his pony, his pocket money, his watch, 
jewelry, etc. He was allowed to take his place 
in the ball room, and dance with the young 
girls. Prococious in all things, he had his 
sweethearts before he was fairly in his teens, 
and wrote sentimental verses to his little favor- 
ites. Mr. Allan, who saw good in everything 
the boy did at this time, was delighted with 
his rhymes, and was going to have them pub- 
lished, but he was dissuaded from doing so by 
a gentleman whom he consulted about the mat- 
ter. He told Mr. Allan that Edgar's natural 
pride and egotism would be injuriously af- 
fected by the appearance of his verses in a 
book; and so, the matter was dropped. 

When Edgar was eleven years old, he was 
placed in an English and classical school. 
Here, he soon became conspicuous for his 
cleverness, and without being a close student, 
his brilliant intellectual gifts, and fine physical 

98 



Cl)e poe Cult 



qualities, made him by common consent the 
head of the school, before he was there three 
years. In all athletic sports, he was a perfect 
master; he could run with the swiftness and 
endurance of an Indian ; he was a great leaper ; 
a good boxer, as one of his old school friends 
once wrote to me ''he was the best, the most 
daring, and most enduring swimmer that I 
ever saw in the water/' One of his swimming 
feats is still remembered in Richmond. It was 
swimming from Ludlam's wharf to Warwick 
Bar, six miles down the James River, on a 
hot summer day. A gentleman of Richmond 
who witnessed the daring feat said Poe did not 
seem at all fatigued, and walked back to the 
city immediately after landing. Poe was only 
fifteen years old at the time he accomplished 
this aquatic feat, which was done against one 
of the strongest tides ever known in the James 
River. The boys of Richmond were proud 
of their bold companion, and they deemed his 
youthful exploit greater than Byron's famous 
feat of swimming across the Hellespont. A 
more foolish aquatic exploit is recorded of 
Poe: One winter day, he and a companion 
were standing on the banks of the James when 
Poe dared his friend to jump in the river and 
swim to a certain point with him. No sooner 
said than done, and the boys were soon floun- 

99 



Ctie Poe Cult 



dering in the half frozen water. Benumbed 
and exhausted, they landed more dead than 
alive, and paid very dear for their foolish feat 
by an illness of several weeks. Poe is de- 
scribed at this time as a haughty, handsome, 
self-willed, impetuous, pugnacious boy, always 
ready to engage in either mental or physical 
fights, and generally coming off victorious. 

Had it been the deliberate purpose of Poe's 
early friends to destroy his naturally fine, 
frank, generous disposition, they could not 
have adopted better means to accomplish their 
intention than they did. While his pride and 
vanity were stimulated his heart was not cul- 
tivated; although Mr. Allan lavished his 
money upon the boy, he did not foster his af- 
fectionate disposition, and utterly failed to 
touch the cords of sympathy that lay dormant 
in the young orphan's heart. That Edgar Poe 
was touched by aJffection and appreciated kind- 
ness is shown by his gratitude to Mrs. Stan- 
nard. This lady was the mother of Robert 
Stannard, one of his friends. Poe went home 
with him one day, and Mrs. Stannard wel- 
comed him with some kind and gracious words. 
The heart of the boy was touched, and from 
that hour, Mrs. Stannard became, as he him- 
self long afterward said: ''The one idolat- 
rous, purely ideal love of my tempest-tossed 

lOO 



Cfte Poe Cult. 



boyhood/' His exquisite lines ''To Helen," 
were inspired by the memory of this lady, who 
became the confidante of his boyish troubles, 
and when she died Poe, who was only fourteen 
at the time, was in the habit of visiting her 
grave every night, and passing hours in soli- 
tary vigils. 

Edgar Poe v\ras brought up with the expec- 
tation of inheriting a princely fortune; every 
youthful whim was indulged, and every ex- 
travagant fancy encouraged, but when he 
reached his twenty-first year, he was turned 
adrift upon the world without a dollar, and 
from that time until his melancholy death, 
twenty years later, he never earned a cent, ex- 
cept by his pen, and very little by that, for he 
lived at a time when literature was scarcely 
recognized as a profession. The conduct of 
Mr. Allan in driving Poe from his house has 
never been satisfactorily explained, but had 
the author of the Raven remained in the lux- 
urious home of his youth, our country might 
have wanted its most remarkable genius. 



lOI 



Cf)e poe Cult 



POE'S FEMALE FRIENDS. 

Edgar Poe's life was not all dark and deso- 
late. It was his singular good fortune, from 
his birth to his death, to win and hold the love 
and friendship of many sweet and sympathetic 
women. Carlyle says the ''story of genius has 
its bright sides as well as dark.'' The bright 
side of Poe's life was, as Washington Irving 
expresses it, when it ''was gladdened by blessed 
womankind.'' The poet possessed many of 
those personal qualities and intellectual gifts 
which interest and fascinate the gentle sex: 
he was handsome, polished, and richly imagi- 
native, and a perfect master of all the graceful 
refinements of language. Perhaps there never 
lived a poet so truly appreciative of the love- 
liness of woman as Edgar Poe. He was a 
worshiper of beauty, believing, with a recent 
poet, that of all beauty a beautiful woman is 
the supremest. His was the delicate, ethereal, 
poetical sentiment of the Greek worship of an 
ideal beauty, so exquisitely personified by Nau- 
sicaa in the Odyssey. 

102 



Cf)e poe Cult 



Poe's female friends, with one or two excep- 
tions, were women who were able to sympa- 
thize with his lofty intellectual ambition, able 
to ''point to higher worlds,'' although, perhaps, 
not capable of ''leading the way'' for him to 
follow. Proud, solitary, and ambitious, he 
found a never-failing congeniality and sym- 
pathy in the society of bright and lovely 
women, some of whom almost realized the 
creations of his wonderful imagination: Li- 
geia, Morella, Lenore. 

Mrs. Allan, who adopted Edgar Poe when 
he was left a homeless orphan, was his first 
female friend. She always stood between him 
and her cold, stern husband. But, unfortu- 
nately, she died just as the young poet reached 
his manhood. Another early friend of Poe 
was Mrs. Helen Stannard, the mother of one 
of his schoolmates. She died when he was 
fourteen, and night after night he visited her 
grave, oppressed by the thought that she was 
lying there all alone. It was during those lone- 
some vigils that he became fascinated b}^ the 
unfathomable mysteries of the other world, 
which impressed his v/hole life and much of his 
life work. To his mind and heart, the dead, 
although unseen, were ever present, seeing, 
knowing, hearing him. Those midnight 
churchyard vigils, v^/ith their unforgotten 

103 



Ciie Poe Cult 



memories, furnish a key to some of the 
strange, mysterious circumstances of his ex- 
traordinary Hfe. In those silent, soHtary com- 
munions with the beloved dead, questions arose 
in the sombre chambers of his imagination 
which were long afterward remembered in the 
musical cadences of his stately verse. 

The pervading and enforcing spirit of some 
of his most wonderful productions, prose and 
verse, is the ^'awful mystery of death/' Those 
familiar with his writings will recall the sad, 
beautiful story of 'Xigeia,'' which displays 
more than any of his remarkable tales, ''an im- 
agination, royally dowered and descended." 
So, also, in ''Morella,'' the characters are pro- 
foundly interested in the same mystic investi- 
gation of life and death, of love that outlives 
death, of death that cannot quench love. The 
sombre mystery of the grave inspired the ex- 
quisite poem, ''The Sleeper,'' which tells in 
words of mournful music of a beautiful 
woman, coffined in her deep and lasting sleep. 
More sombre still is the "Conqueror Worm," 
which is a wild, despairing wail over the hope- 
lessness of receiving tidings of the dead. In 
the lyric, "For Annie," the treatment, though 
the subject is still of the dead, is free from 
that dark despair which broods over most of 
his wonderful verse. But, of all the poetry in- 

104 



Cfte Poe Cult 



spired by his grateful memory of Mrs. Stan- 
nard, the best, the most beautiful, the most elo- 
quent is 'Xenore," commencing, 

"Ah, broken is the golden bowl, the spirit flown for- 
ever ! 

Let the bell toll ! A saintly soul floats on the Stygian 
river !" 

Another poem addressed to this lady has a 
Still more classic grace. I refer to the 'Xines 
to Helen,'' commencing, 

'^Helen, thy beauty was to me." 

This dainty poem w^as written before Poe 
had reached his fifteenth year. James Rus- 
sell Lowell says these lines have a grace and 
symmetry of outline such as few poets ever 
attain, and they are valuable as displaying 
''what can only be expressed by a contradictory 
phrase, innate experience.'' 

Thus some of the most remarkable of Poe's 
poems were inspired by her of whom he wrote, 
a year or two before his death : "As the friend 
of my boyhood, the truest, tenderest of this 
world's most womanly souls, and an angel to 
my forlorn and darkened nature." 

In 1836 Poe married his fair young cousin, 
Virginia Clemm. All who knew Virginia Poe 
speak of her matchless beauty and loveliness. 
Captain Mayne Reid, who frequently visited 
the family when they were residing in one of 

105 



Cfte Poe Cult 



the suburbs of Philadelphia, described their 
home as small but beautified by flowers, en- 
livened by the singing of birds, and illumined 
by the presence of the poet's young wife, who 
was "angelically beautiful in person, and not 
less beautiful in spirit. No one who remembers 
the dark-eyed daughter of the South, her face 
so exquisitely lovely, her gentle, graceful de- 
meanor, no one who has spent an hour in her 
society, but will endorse what I have said of 
this lady, who was the most delicate realiza- 
tion of the poet's ideal. But, the bloom upon 
her cheek was too pure, too bright, for earth. 
It was consumption's color — that sadly beauti- 
ful light beckons to an early grave." 

The tender grace of the love of Edgar and 
Virginia Poe inspired his exquisite ballad, 
''Annabel Lee," of which she was the heroine. 
Nothing could be more beautiful and suggest- 
ive than these lines: 

"A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 

My beautiful Annabel Lee; 
So that her high-born kinsmen came, 

And bore her away from me." 

Edgar Poe was a very domestic man, and 
found his best and truest happiness in the so- 
ciety of his wife and mother, who loved him 
devotedly and never lost confidence in him. 

io6 



Clie poe Cult 



He was seldom away from home for an hour, 
unless his darling Virginia or Mrs. Clemm was 
with him, except when engaged in his literary 
pursuits. ''The three lived one for the other/' 
said Mrs. Clemm. Poe's devotion to his deli- 
cate wife was one of the most beautiful traits 
in his character, and her death at the early age 
of twenty-five was the greatest grief of his 
life. It was in memory of her that he wrote 
his weird requiem of ''Ulalume/' a poem that 
has pleased and puzzled alike the most thought- 
ful and imaginative minds. 

The unceasing love and devotion of Mrs. 
Clemm to Edgar Poe — a devotion that outlived 
the life of the poet's wife, a love that only 
ended with Mrs. Clemm's death — was the 
natural result of his love and devotion to her 
daughter. To Mrs. Clemm he addressed a son- 
net shov/ing his appreciation of her great kind- 
ness and unfailing patience and sweetness of 
disposition. The last lines are particularly 
beautiful : 

^'My mother — my own mother — who died early, 
Was but the mother of myself; but you 

Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, 

And thus are dearer than the mother whom I knew, 

By that infinity with which my wife 
Is dearer to my soul than its soul-life." 



107 



Cfte poe Cult 



Soon after the publication of ''The Raven" 
Poe met a lady who was destined to exercise 
a good and powerful influence over his life. 
This lady was Mrs. Sargent Osgood, one of 
the most gifted and impassioned poets of the 
decade of American literature between 1840 
and 1850. She has furnished a very interest- 
ing account of her first meeting with Poe: 

''My first meeting with the poet was at the 
Astor House. A few days previous Mr. Willis 
handed me, at the table d'hote, that strange 
and thrilling poem, 'The Raven, ^ saying that 
the author wanted my opinion of it. Its effect 
upon me was so singular, so like that of 'weird, 
unearthly music,' that it was with a feeling 
almost of dread that I heard that he desired 
an introduction. Yet I could not refuse with- 
out seeming ungrateful, because I had just 
heard of his enthusiastic and partial eulogy 
of my writings, in his lecture on American 
Literature. I shall never forget the morning 
when I was summoned to the drawing room to 
receive him. With his proud and beautiful 
head erect, his dark eyes flashing with the 
electric light of feeling and thought, a peculiar 
and indescribable blending of hauteur and 
sweetness in his expression and manner, he 
greeted me calmly, gravely, almost coldly — yet 
with so marked an earnestness that I could not 

108 



Ct)e Poe Cult 



help feeling deeply impressed by it. From that 
moment until his death we were friends/' 

In another communication Mrs. Osgood 
speaks of her ''affectionate interest'' in the 
poet, adding: 

''I think no one knew him, no one has known 
him personally — certainly no woman — with- 
out feeling the same interest. I can sincerely 
say that I have never seen him otherwise than 
gentle, generous, well-bred, and fastidiously 
refined. To a sensitive and delicately nurtured 
woman, there was a peculiar and irresistible 
charm in the chivalry, grace, and almost rever- 
ence with which he approached all women who 
won his respect. It was this which first won 
and always retained my regard for him." 

Mrs. Osgood furnishes a charming glimpse 
of the poet in his own home, sitting beneath the 
romantic picture of his lost Lenore, spending 
hour after hour in literary composition, trac- 
ing in the most exquisite hand ever written by 
poet the rare and radiant fancies as they 
flashed through his wonderful brain. She de- 
scribes a visit at his house toward the close of 
his residence in New York, when he seemed 
unusually gay and light-hearted. Mrs. Os- 
good's narrative runs as follows: 

''Virginia, his sweet wife, had written me a 
pressing invitation to come to them — and I 

109 



Cfee Poe Cult 



who never could resist her affectionate sum- 
mons, and who enjoyed his society far more in 
his own house than elsewhere, hastened to 
Amity Street. I found him just completing 
his series of papers entitled 'The Literati of 
New York/ 'See,' said he, displaying in 
laughing triumph several little rolls of narrow 
paper, 'I am going to show you, by the differ- 
ence in length of these, the different degrees of 
estimation in which I hold all you literary peo- 
ple. In each of these, one of you is rolled up 
and fully discussed. Come, Virginia, help 
me !' And one by one they unfolded them. At 
last they came to one that seemed interminable. 
Virginia, laughing, ran to the side of the room 
with one end, and her husband to- the opposite 
with the other. 'And whose linked sweetness 
long drawn out is this?' said I. 'Hear her!' 
he cried, 'just as if her vain little heart didn't 
tell her it's herself.' " 

Mrs. Osgood's friendship for the poet lasted 
until his death, and she survived him only 
seven months. In the last edition of her 
poems is one inspired by her friendship for 
Poe. I quote the last verse : 

"Love's silver lyre he played so well 

Lies shattered on his tomb; 
But still in air its music spell 

Floats on through light and gloom; 

IIO 



C!)e poe Cult 



And in the hearts where soft they fell 
His words of beauty bloom 

Forevermore." 

Mrs. Osgood was worthy of Poe's enthusi- 
astic admiration : her mind and heart, her face 
and figure, were alike exquisite. She was of 
medium height, slender, dainty, and grace- 
ful ; her eyes were large, luminous, and full of 
expression; her complexion was pale, and of- 
fered a striking contrast to her dark hair ; her 
features were refined and her whole appear- 
ance possessed a rare, delicate beauty, which 
was both interesting and charming. No per- 
son can look upon the face of this lady, a face 
glowing with enthusiasm and a dreamy, trop- 
ical sunshine, and wonder that a man of Poe's 
deep and earnest feeling, a man of his passion- 
ate appreciation of beauty and genius, should 
have been so prodigal and eloquent in his praise 
of her person and poetry. 

Soon after Poe moved to Fordham, in the 
summer of 1846, he became acquainted with 
Mary Louise Shew. The poet's wife was d}^- 
ing of consumption, and the anxiety caused by 
her sickness prevented him from engaging in 
any literary work; thus his only source of in- 
come was cut ofif. The situation of the little 
household grew worse and worse every day, 

III 



Cfje poe Cult 



and absolute starvation threatened them. At 
this critical moment Mrs. Shew's kind offices 
were enlisted in their behalf ; she raised money, 
bought comforts for the dying wife, and be- 
came the ministering angel of the family. 

After the death of Mrs. Poe, Mrs. Shew 
continued her gentle charity to the stricken 
members of the Fordham cottage. It was 
chiefly through her exertions that a purse of 
one hundred dollars was raised at the Union 
Club of New York. Among the contributors 
was Gen. Winfield Scott, who said, ''true- 
hearted Americans should take care of their 
poets as well as of their soldiers.'^ 

Mrs. Estelle Anna Lewis, who is known in 
the literary world as ''Stella,'' was another 
kind friend who assisted Poe at this time of 
his greatest need. This lady — author of the 
imaginative poem, "Records of the Heart,'' and 
other poetical works, including "The Child of 
the Sea," which Poe mentioned as "strikingly 
original" and "warmly imaginative" — was one 
of the last and truest friends the poet ever 
had. He himself said that he had for her the 
affection of a brother." Mrs. Lewis wrote: 
I saw much of Mr. Poe during the last year 
of his life. He was one of the most sensitive 
and refined gentleman I ever met. My girlish 
poem, "The Forsaken," made us acquainted, 






€:bt poc Cult 



He had seen it floating the rounds of the press, 
and wrote to tell me how much he liked it — 
'It is inexpressibly beautiful/ he said, 'and I 
should very much like to know the young 
author/ '' 

The day before Poe left New York for 
Richmond (June 30, 1849), he and Mrs. 
Clemm dined with Mr. and Mrs. Lewis and 
stayed at their house all night. The latter, in 
giving an account of this last visit, said: 

''Mr. Poe seemed very sad and retired early. 
On leaving the next day, he took my hand in 
his, and said, 'Dear Stella, my much beloved 
friend, I have a presentiment that I shajl never 
see you again. If I never return, write my 
life. You can and will do me justice.' '' 

Mrs. Lewis promised, and they parted to 
meet no more in this life. 

The name of Sarah Helen Whitman will be 
forever associated with the name of Edgar A. 
Poe, as that of the woman he most passion- 
ately loved during life, and who most jeal- 
ously guarded and defended his memory when 
he was dead. Their names will be linked to- 
gether like the name of Surrey and the Fair 
Geraldine, Byron and Mary Chaworth, Burns 
and Highland Mary. It is well known that 
after the death of his child-wife, Virginia 
Clemm, Poe, seeking "surcease of sorrow for 

113 



Clie pee Cwlt 



his lost Lenore/' become engaged to Mrs. 
Whitman. Of this short-Hved engagement it 
has been said : ''It opened a prospect of hap- 
piness — even for him, the desolate and de- 
spairing. Like the gleam of the light that 
cheered Sinbad in the Cave of Death and re- 
stored him to life, did this engagement hold 
out a saving hope to the soul of the unhappy 
master of 'The Raven,' and promise to re- 
store him once again to love." 

Mrs. Whitman v^as the very type of woman 
to interest such a man as Poe. Dr. W. E. 
Anthony, of Providence, R. L, who knew her, 
has furnished me with a sketch of Mrs. Whit- 
man. He says her nature was essentially 
feminine, having a great personal magnetism ; 
her conversation was replete with wit, imagi- 
nation and sentiment. She had a beautiful, in- 
tellectual face, a fine figure, and a brilliant 
complexion. She always wore one style of 
dress, winter and summer, year in and 
year out. It was strikingly original and 
set oflf her personal charms to the best ad- 
vantage. A profusion of curls fell over her 
exquisitely shaped forehead, while over the 
back of her head was thrown a white veil, 
which fell to her shoulders. She received visi- 
tors in a room lighted by rose-colored lamps, 
and the room seemed a shrine and she a sibyl. 

114 



Cfje poe Cult 



To win the hand of this woman seemed to 
Poe his last chance to reestabUsh his desolate 
home, and he pleaded with such passionate 
ardor, such burning eloquence, such irresist- 
able love, that, in spite of the entreaties of 
her mother and the warnings of her friends, 
Mrs. Whitman engaged herself to him. Hav- 
ing won this advantage, he urged an immediate 
marriage. Again she yielded to his passionate 
pleading, and late in November he arrived in 
Providence full of anticipation of happiness. 
When he called upon Mrs. Whitman, that lady 
met him, and, as she herself relates: 

''Gathering together some papers which he 
had intrusted to my keeping, I placed them in 
his hands without a word of explanation or 
reproach, and, utterly worn out and exhausted 
by the mental conflicts and anxieties of the 
last few days, I drenched my handkerchief 
with ether and threw myself on a sofa, hoping 
to lose myself in utter unconsciousness. Sink- 
ing upon his knees beside me, he entreated me 
to speak to him. I responded almost inaudibly, 
'What can I say?' 'Say that you love me, 
Helen.' 7 love you.' These were the last 
words I ever spoke to him.'' 

Poe left the house without another word, 
and never saw Mrs. Whitman again. The 
breaking off of this famous engagement gave 

115 



Ctie Poe Cult 



rise to all sorts of rumors, the most scandalous 
of which Rufus W. Griswold enlarged and 
embellished. Mrs. Whitman denied Gris- 
wold's story, as shown in ''The Truth about 
Edgar Allan Poe/' printed later on in this 
work. 

Mrs. Whitman died on the 27th of June, 
1878, in the seventy-sixth year of her age. 
She was a believer in spiritualism, and, at her 
funeral, instead of religious service, several 
of her friends pronounced eulogies. Over her 
casket was thrown a white drapery, in the 
folds of which were green ivy leaves. Her 
grave was lined with laurel and evergreens, 
and each friend dropped flowers; and thus in 
love and tender sympathy the last gentle 
service was rendered to the last of Poe's 
Female Friends. 



116 



1 




SARAH HELEN WHITMAN, 



Ci)e poe Cult 



POE AND MRS. WHITMAN. 

Burns' Highland Mary, Petrarch's Laura, 
and other real and imaginary loves of the 
poets, have been immortalized in song, but 
we doubt whether any of the numerous objects 
of poetical adoration were more worthy of 
honor than Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, the 
friend and defender of Edgar A. Poe. That 
he should have inspired so deep and lasting a 
love in the heart of so true and pure a woman 
would alone prove that he was not the social 
pariah his vindictive enemies have held up to 
the world's wonder and detestation. The poet's 
love for Mrs. Whitman was the one gleam of 
hope that cheered the last sad years of his 
life. His letters to her breathed the most pas- 
sionate devotion and the most enthusiastic 
admiration. One eloquent extract from his 
love letters to Mrs. Whitman will suffice. In 
response to a passage in one of her letters in 
which she says, ''How often have I heard men, 
and even women, say of you, 'He has great in- 
tellectual power, but no principle, no moral 

117 



Cfte poe Cult 



sense !' He exclaims, 'I love you too truly ever 
to have offered you my hand, even to have 
sought your love, had I known my name to be 
so stained as your expressions imply. There 
is no oath which seems to me so sacred as that 
sworn by the all-divine love I bear you. By 
this love, then, and by the God who reigns in 
heaven, I swear to you that my soul is in- 
capable of dishonor. I can call to mind no act 
of my life which would bring a blush to my 
cheek or to yours.' '' 

Why the engagement was broken, and by 
whom, still remains buried in mystery, but that 
Poe was guilty of any ''outrage" at her house 
upon the eve of their intended marriage was 
emphatically denied by Mrs. Whitman. She 
pronounced the whole story a ''calumny.'' In 
a letter before me she says: "I do not think 
it possible to overstate the gentlemanly re- 
ticence and amenity of his habitual manner. 
It was stamped through and through with the 
impress of nobility and gentleness. I have 
seen him in many moods and phases in those 
'lonesome latter years' which were rapidly 
merging into the mournful tragedy of death. 
I have seen him sullen and moody under a 
sense of insult and imaginary wrong. I have 
never seen in him the faintest indication of 
savagery and rowdyism and brutality." 

ii8 



Ci)e poe Cult 



Some of the most tenderly passionate of 
Mrs. Whitman's verses were inspired by her 
affection for Poe. She wrote six sonnets to 
his memory, overflowing with the most ex- 
alted love and generous sympathy. The first 
of these sonnets ends thus : 

"Thou wert my destiny : thy song, thy fame, 

The. wild enchantments clustering round thy name, 

Were my soul's heritage — its regal dower. 
Its glory, and its kingdom, and its power. 

In one of Mrs. Whitman's letters, now lying 
before me, she says : ''So much has been writ- 
ten, and so much still continues to be writ- 
ten, about Poe by persons who are either his 
avowed or secret enemies, that I joyfully wel- 
come every friendly or impartial word spoken 
in his behalf. His enemies are uttering their 
venomous fabrications in every newspaper, 
and so few voices can obtain a hearing in his 
defense. My own personal knowledge of Mr. 
Poe was very brief, although it comprehended 
memorable incidents, and was doubtless, as he 
kindly characterized it in one of his letters of 
the period, 'the most earnest epoch of his life;' 
and such I believe it to have been. You ask 
me to furnish you with extracts from his let- 
ters, literary or otherwise. There are impera- 
tive reasons why these letters cannot and 
ought not be published at present — not that 

119 



Cf)e Pee Cult 



there was a word or a thought in them dis- 
creditable to Poe, though some of them were 
imprudent, doubtless, and liable to be con- 
strued wrongly by his enemies. They are for 
the most part strictly personal. The only ex- 
tract from them of which I have authorized 
the publication is a fac simile of a paragraph 
inserted between the 68th and 69th pages of 
Mr. Ingram's memoir in Black's (Edinburgh) 
edition of the complete works of Poe. The 
paragraph in the original letter (dated Nov. 
24, 1848) consists of only eight lines: 'The 
agony which I have so lately endured — an 
agony known only to my God and myself — 
seems to have passed my soul through fire, 
and purified it from all that is weak. Hence- 
forward I am strong: this those who love me 
shall see, as well as those who have relent- 
lessly endeavored to ruin me. It only needed 
some such trials as I have just undergone to 
make me what I was born to be by making me 
conscious of my own strength.' This was a 
protest against the charges of indifference to 
moral obligations so often urged against him, 
which I permitted Mr. Gill to extract for pub- 
lication from a long letter filled with eloquent 
and proud remonstrance against the injustice 
of such a charge, are the only passages of 
' which I have authorized the publication. 

120 



Cfte poe Cult 



Other letters have been published without my 
consent. I have endeavored to reconcile my- 
self to the unauthorized use of private letters 
and papers, since the effect of their publica- 
tion has been on the whole regarded as favor- 
able to Poe/' 

It was Mrs. Whitman who first attempted 
to trace Edgar Poe's descent from the old Nor- 
man family of Le Poer, which emigrated to 
Ireland during the reign of Henry 11. of Eng- 
land. Lady Blessington, through her father, 
Edmund Power, claimed the same illustrious 
descent. The Le Poers were distinguished for 
being improvident, daring and reckless. The 
family originally belonged to Italy, whence 
they passed to the north of France, and went 
to England with William the Conqueror. 

When Stephane Mallarme, an enthusias- 
tic admirer of Poe, undertook to translate 
his works into PVench, he addressed Mrs. 
Whitm.an in a complimentary letter, from 
which the following passages are translated: 
''Whatever is done to honor the memory of a 
genius, the most truly divine the world has 
seen, ought it not first to obtain your sanc- 
tion? Such of Poe's works as our great 
Beaudelaire left untranslated — that is to say, 
the poems and many of the literary criticisms 
— I hope to make known to France. My first 

121 



C!)e poe Cult 



attempt, Xe Corbeau/ of which I send you a 
specimen, is intended to attract attention to a 
future work now nearly completed. I trust 
that the attempt will meet your approval, but 
no possible success of my future design could 
cause you, Madam, a satisfaction equal to the 
joy, vivid, profound and absolute, caused by 
an extract from one of your letters in which 
you expressed a wish to see a copy of my 'Cor- 
beau/ Not only in space — which is nothing — 
but in time, made up for each of us of the 
hours we deem most memorable in the past, 
your wish seemed to come to me from so far, 
and to bring with it the most delicious return 
of long cherished memories; for, fascinated 
with the works of Poe from my infancy, it 
has been a long time that your name has been 
associated with his in my earliest and most 
intimate sympathies. Receive, Madam, this 
expression of gratitude such as your poetical 
soul may comprehend, for it is my inmost heart 
that thanks you/' 



122 



Ciie pot Cult 



THE LOVES OF EDGAR A. POE. 

The splendid fame that has crowned the 
name of Edgar A. Poe within the memory of 
Hving men has made him one of the most in- 
teresting personaHties, not only in American 
Literature, but in the literature of the world. 
Proudly conscious of his rare and remark- 
able genius, the author of The Raven mingled 
in a cold and unsympathetic world with a 
haughty defiance. But, beneath that stern and 
cynical exterior, was a heart full of romantic 
sentiment, and quickly responsive to kindness 
and affection. 

Poe, himself, was the offspring of a roman- 
tic marriage between a young actress and a 
Baltimore law student, and he proved himself 
a worthy son of his parents. Before he had 
completed his sixteenth year, he wooed and 
won the heart of a young girl in Richmond 
who was destined to be his first and his last 
love, also. Elmira Royster was the fair 
daughter of one of the proudest families of 
the Old Dominion, and Poe, although the son 
of a poor player {poor in every respect), was 

123 



Cfte poe Cult 



the recognized peer of the best in Virginia's 
capital. Years afterwards, the poet, speaking 
of youthful love, quotes the assertion of 
George Sand that ''les anges ne sont plus pures 
que le coeur d' un jeune homme qui aime en 
verite,'' and remarks that it would be truth 
itself were it averred of the love of him who 
is at the same time young and a poet. He 
cites the boyish love of Byron for Mary Cha- 
worth which affected the whole subsequent life 
of the noble bard, adding, ''she to him was the 
Egeria of his dreams — the Venus Aphrodite 
that sprang, in full and supernal loveliness, 
from the bright foam upon the storm-tor- 
mented ocean of his thoughts.'' Miss Royster 
lived opposite to Poe's home in Richmond, and, 
naturally, they became acquainted — an ac- 
quaintance which soon ripened into mutual 
love. 

This youthful love affair continued until 
Poe left Richmond for the University of Vir- 
ginia. They agreed to keep up a frequent cor- 
respondence during their separation, but the 
father of the young lady, who disapproved of 
the affair, intercepted his letters. 

He hastened to marry his daughter to a 
more desirable husband. It was not until a 
year or two after she became Mrs. Shelton 
that Poe learned why his passionate love let- 

124 



I 



Clje poe Cult 



ters received no answer from his sweetheart. 
The effect of this boyish attachment is per- 
ceptible in many of the poef s juvenile verses. 

Long years after the death of her poet-lover, 
Mrs. Shelton recalled him as ''a beautiful 
boy;" quiet, agreeable, but sad-mannered; 
"'full of strong prejudices, and passionately 
fond, even in those early days, of everything 
beautiful and having a natural invincible de- 
testation of everything coarse and unrefined.'' 
He drew beautifully; ''he drew a pencil like- 
ness of me in a few minutes." He was, also, 
very fond of music. ''Edgar," continues the 
lady, "was very generous, and warm and zeal- 
ous in any cause he was interested in, being 
enthusiastic and impulsive." 

When Poe's adopted father, John Allan, a 
wealthy merchant of Richmond, drove him 
from the only home he had known for twenty- 
two years, the outcast was received into the 
family of his aunt, Mrs. Marie Clemm, in 
Baltimore, and, until his unhappy life ended, 
his home was with her, whether in Richmond, 
Baltimore, Philadelphia or New York. 

Mrs. Clemm was the daughter of Gen. 
David Poe, whose services and sacrifices in 
the American Revolution entitled him to the 
respect of his countrymen. His daughter was 
poor, but she gave "Eddie," as she always 



Cl)e poe Cult 



called the poet, a home rich in love. Her only 
child, Virginia, was at that time a lovely girl 
of about ten years old. Poe became her 
teacher. They were both young, and daily 
and hourly together. Naturally, they fell in 
love with each other. Upon their youthful 
love, Poe founded one of his early tales, 
'Xeonora,'' the scenes of which are laid in the 
Valley of the Many-colored Grass. He de- 
scribes the ''sweet recesses of the vale;" the 
''Deep and narrow river, brighter than all save 
the eyes of Eleonora ;'' "the soft, green grass, 
besprinkled with yellow buttercup, the white 
daisy, the purple violet, and the ruby-red 
asphodel — all so beautiful that it spoke to our 
hearts of the love and glory of God.'' Here 
they "lived all alone, knowing nothing of the 
world without the valley — I, and my cousin 
and her mother f' "The loveliness of Eleonora 
was that of the seraphim, and she was a 
maiden artless and innocent as the brief life 
she had led among the flowers; no guile dis- 
guised the fervor of love which animated her 
heart.'' 

In 1835, Poe was appointed editor of the 
Southern Literary Messenger, a magazine 
which had been started in Richmond a short 
time before. Under his management the Mes- 

126 



C!)e poe Cult 



senger soon gained a national reputation, and 
within one year its circulation increased from 
seven hundred to five thousand, which was a 
large circulation for a magazine sixty years 
ago. But, in the midst of his brilliant literary 
success, Poe felt most painfully his absence 
from her who had been his companion for four 
years. During all these years he had watched 
her as she grew more lovely, more charming, 
more interesting, and now when he wished to 
make her his wife, she was two hundred miles 
away. He became depressed, morbid, melan- 
choly. At his solicitation, Mrs. Clemm re- 
moved to Richmond with her daughter, and, 
on the 1 6th of May, 1836, he was married to 
his cousin, she being not quite fourteen years 
old. The rest of that year was perhaps the 
brightest and happiest of Poe^s life. His 
salary, indeed, was small ($15.00 a week), but 
it afforded sufficient support . for the little 
family. Mrs. Clemm was a wonderful mana- 
ger, and proved the truth of Goethe's saying 
that beauty is cheap when taste is the pur- 
chaser. 

I have told the story of Poe's married life 
in another article — of his perfect devotion in 
sickness and in health- — of his sorrow and 
desolation when a cruel death took her from 
him forever. One who knew the family well 

127 



ije poe Cult 



describes Virginia a year or two after her 
marriage as possessing a matchless beauty and 
loveHness; her eyes were as bright as any 
houri; and her face defied the genius of 
Canova to imitate. Added to the charms of 
person was a disposition of surpassing sweet- 
ness. The tender love and devotion existing 
between the poet and his beautiful young wife 
was remarked by all who knew them. Poe's 
unhappiness was inborn, and came not from 
any domestic cause, for both Mrs. Clemm and 
her daughter cared for him as though he were 
a child. They spared him all those little per- 
sonal matters which annoy sensitive people. 
They selected his collars and cravats, his 
gloves and cuffs. He was always neatly 
dressed ; Mrs. Clemm told me he preferred for 
ordinary wear a dark-gray suit, with a turn- 
down collar and black cravat. She said she 
had often heard Eddie declare that he never 
saw any person so beautiful as his own sweet 
little wife. He did not know, at that time, that 
Virginia's beauty was of that fatal kind which 
consumption imparts to its victim, and that 
"she had been made perfect in loveliness only 
to die.'' In a letter written to her relative, 
the late Judge Neilson Poe, Mrs. Clemm gives 
some interesting details of the domestic life 
of the poet. 

128 



Cf)e Poe Cult 



''Eddie was domestic in all his habits, sel- 
dom leaving home for an hour unless his 
darling Virginia or myself were with him. 
He was truly an affectionate, kind husband, 
and a devoted son to me. He was impulsive, 
generous, affectionate, noble. His tastes were 
very simple, and his admiration for all that 
was good and beautiful very great. We three 
lived only for each other." 

Theodore Parker said that every man of 
genius has to hew out for himself, from the 
hard marble of life, the white statue of Tran- 
quillity. Applying this to Poe, Mrs. Whit- 
man with all her womanly sympathy asked the 
world to look with pity and reverent awe upon 
the unhappy poet's efforts to achieve that 
beautiful and august statue of Peace. She re- 
marks further that one clear glance into the 
corridors of his life — ''its halls of tragedy and 
chambers of retribution,'' would appall the 
stoutest heart. It was after the death of his 
charming child-wife that the poet's heart be- 
came so desolate and suffered from what he 
himself describes as "a sense of insupportable 
loneliness and a dread of some strange im- 
pending doom.'^ Like many highly imagina- 
tive men, Poe was deeply interested in the 
awful mystery of death. In most of his poetry 
and in many of his prose tales, he seeks to un- 

129 



Cf)c poe Cult 



ravel the impenetrable secrets of the grave, 
finding a never-ceasing fascination in its 
gloomy recesses. Mrs. Clemm told me that 
''Eddie'' often wandered to his wife's grave 
at midnight, in the snow and rain, and threw 
himself upon the mound of earth, calling upon 
her in words of most tender affection to watch 
over him. For weeks and months after this, 
the crowning sorrow of his life of sorrow, the 
poet was crushed with grief. His usual oc- 
cupations were neglected, his pen was thrown 
aside ; his books were not opened ; he wandered 
about the country by day, and at night kept 
long and solitary vigil at the grave of his 
"lost Lenore." From that time, he was a 
changed man: he who never laughed and 
rarely ever smiled, scarcely ever smiled again. 
In the autumn of 1848, a gleam of sunlight 
illumined Poe's dark and fateful life, for at 
that time he first became personally acquainted 
with Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman. Twenty- 
four years afterwards, Mrs. Whitman wrote 
a long and interesting account of her love af- 
fair with the poet. It appears that he called 
upon her at her residence in Providence, R. I., 
bringing a letter of introduction from a mutual 
friend, Miss Maria J. Mcintosh. Mrs. Whit- 
man's presence seemed to inspire him with an 
immediate hope that she could, if she would, 

130 



Cfje Poe Cult 



raise him from the misery and despair from 
which he had been suffering since the death of 
his wife, nearly two years before; and, also, 
that she could give an inspiration to his genius, 
of which he had, said Poe, as yet given no 
token. ''Notwithstanding the eloquence wath 
which he urged upon me his wishes,'' said Mrs. 
Whitman, ''I knew too well that I could not 
exercise over him the power that he described 
to me. In parting with him, I promised that 
I would reply to him and tell him what I could 
not then say to him." Poe wrote to Mrs. 
Whitman soon after leaving her, but she de- 
layed writing from day to day, unwilling to 
give him pain by a refusal, and yet fearing to 
mislead him and compromise herself by any 
word of friendly sympathy and encourage- 
ment. However, after a few weeks, an ardent 
courtship won the lady's consent to a condi- 
tional engagement, followed by her consent to 
an immediate marriage. On Saturday, De- 
cember 24, 184S, Poe VvTote to a minister, ask- 
ing him to perform the ceremony on the fol- 
lowing Monday evening ; he wrote at the same 
time to Mrs. Clemm that he and his bride 
should arrive in New York on Tuesday, De- 
cember 27th. The condition upon which Mrs. 
Whitman consented to marry Poe was that 
he should not touch liquor of any kind. Mrs. 

131 



Cf)e poe Cult 



Whitman says her friends were anxious to 
break the rash engagement, and were strongly 
opposed to the hasty marriage. On Saturday 
afternoon, she received a note informing her 
that Poe had that very morning broken his 
promise by drinking wine in the barroom of 
the Earl House ; he took but a single glass, and 
showed no evidence of excitement in his man- 
ner or appearance; but this proof of his in- 
firmity of purpose at such a moment convinced 
his fiancee that no influence of hers could avail 
to save him, and she broke the engagement. 
He returned to New York that evening, and 
the lovers never met again, but Poe's love for 
her was one of the cherished memories of Mrs. 
Whitman's life, and her deep interest in his 
name and fame ceased only with her own 
death, which took place on the 27th of June, 
1876. 

In the summer of 1849, Poe visited Rich- 
mond, and there among the scenes of his youth 
and early manhood, he resumed his acquaint- 
ance with the object of his first love, Elmira 
Royster, who was at that time the widow Shel- 
ton. Their love was renewed, and an en- 
gagement quickly followed, and the marriage 
was fixed for the ensuing October. While on 
his way to New York, to bring Mrs. Clemm 
to Richmond, which was to be their future 

132 



Cfte poe Cult 



home, Poe was overtaken by the calamity in 
Baltimore, which resulted in his death on the 
7th of October, 1849. 

Besides these various loves of Edgar Poe, 
he had several friendships, more or less ardent. 
His friendship for Mrs. Frances Sargent Os- 
good was cemented by a congeniality of taste 
and a poetical sympathy. Each celebrated the 
other in verse, and Mrs. Osgood, a few months 
before her own early death — she survived Poe 
only seven months — wrote a most interesting 
personal sketch of the poet, giving a detailed 
account of his home life in New York, after 
the publication of The Raven had placed him 
among the first of living poets. In a well- 
known drawing room in New York, once the 
favorite resort of the literati, there hung a 
portrait of Poe, which was described as hav- 
ing the aspect of a beautiful and desolate 
shrine from which the Genius had departed, 
recalling certain lines in one of the antique 
marbles : 

"Oh melancholy eyes! 

Oh empty eyes, from which the soul has gone 

To see the far-off countries.'' 

Near this luminous but impassive face, with 
its sad and soulless eyes, says Mrs. Whitman, 
was a portrait of Poe's unrelenting biographer, 
Griswold. In a recess opposite hung a por- 

133 



Cije poe Cult 



trait of the fascinating Mrs. Osgood, whose 
genius both had so fervently admired, and for 
whose coveted praise and friendship both had 
been competitors. Looking at the beautiful 
face of this lady, so full of enthusiasm, and 
dreamy, tropical sunshine — remembering the 
eloquent words of her praise, as expressed in 
the prodigal and passionate exaggerations of 
her verse, one ceases to wonder at the rivalries 
and enmities enkindled within the hearts of 
those who admired her genius and grace — 
rivalries and enmities which the grave itself 
could not cancel or appease. 

The lover and his loves are long since dead, 
but, so immortal is the touch of genius, the 
memory of those ladies is embalmed in their 
country's literary history. This sketch of the 
loves of Edgar A. Poe cannot be more ap- 
propriately concluded than by quoting two 
verses from an exquisite poem of Sarah Helen 
Whitman, entitled, ''The Portrait of Poe.'' 

Sweet, mournful eyes, long closed upon earth's sorrow, 
Sleep restfully, after life's fevered dream! 

Sleep, wayward heart ! till some cool bright morrow, 
Thy soul, refreshed, shall bathe in morning's beam. 

Though cloud and shadow rest upon your story. 
And rude hands lift the drapery of thy pall, 

Time, as a birthright, shall restore thy glory, 
And Heaven rekindle all the stars that fall." 

134 



Cfte poe Cult 



POE AND STODDARD. 

The death o£ Richard Henry Stoddard, on 
the 1 2th of May, 1903, removed from the 
world the last of the Hterary contemporaries 
of Edgar A. Poe. Their acquaintance began 
in the Summer of 1845, when Poe was the edi- 
tor, owner, and principal contributor to the 
Broadway Journal. Mr. Stoddard has told 
the story of his acquaintance with Poe — told it 
often and well — told it with interesting em- 
bellishment, blending fact and fiction in equal 
portions. The courtesies of journalism are 
more regarded now than they were twenty- 
four years ago. I have before me an article 
from a leading New York newspaper, of May 
3, 1885, headed, ''Reminiscences of Poe, Poet, 
Lover, Liar." By Richard Henry Stoddard. 
He says : ''When I was in the twentieth year 
of mxy age, I was under the delusion that I 
could write poetry. I belonged to the school 
of Keats, though I was only in the infant 
class. Something that I had read suggested 
an Ode to a Grecian Flute, and I wrote one, 

135 



Cfje Poe Cult 



or tried to, which is not precisely the same 
thing. I made a fair copy of the effusion, and 
sent it to the great Mr. Poe, who was then 
editing the Broadway Journal, It was pub- 
Hshed. in CHnton Hall, not far from where 
Temple Court is. I waited patiently two or 
three weeks, at the end of which time, the im- 
mortality of print being denied me, I took a 
day and went down to the office of the Broad- 
way JoiirnaL Mr. Poe was not there, but I 
obtained his address, and retraced my steps. 
I found the house in which he lodged. It was 
on the southerly side of East Broadway, prob- 
ably in the neighborhood of Clinton Street. I 
was directed to his rooms, which were on the 
second floor. He was dressed in black, I re- 
member, and was very courteous to me. The 
Ode should appear next week. I thanked him, 
and rising to leave, saw that his wife, who 
was, also, in black, was lying asleep on a bed— 
a fragile gentlewoman, whom I pitied, for I 
felt she had not long to live. I saw her 
mother at that same time, who was also in 
black. I bowed to her, and departed. The 
Ode did not appear next week, but there was 
a reference to it in the earner devoted to Cor- 
respondents. The editor doubted the original- 
ity of my verse, and declined to publish it un- 
less he could be assured of its authenticity. I 

136 



Cf)e poe Cult 



was startled, but complimented, for had I not 
written so well that Poe suspected that I was 
a literary thief. I was hurt, but I was flat- 
tered and bettered, for I was no longer afraid 
of the poet's criticism. I took another fore- 
noon, a week later, and went again to the of- 
fice of the Broadway Journal. It was a boil- 
ing day in June. The editor was not in his 
chair, but was expected to return soon. I 
walked up and down the hot street, and at 
the end of an hour, returned, and was in- 
formed that Mr. Poe was in, and was shown 
to his room. He was in black, as before, asleep 
in his chair. The publisher wakened him. 
'What do you want?' he snapped out. 'I have 
come, Mr. Poe, to assure you of the authen- 
ticity of the ''Ode on a Grecian Flute.'' ' He 
glared at me, and without waiting to hear 
what I had to say, declared that I was a Har, 
and consigned me to instant perdition. Then 
he rose surlily, and threatened to kick me out 
of the office if I did not get out at once ; which 
I did." 

Mr. Stoddard said, several years ago, that 
he had made over $700 by writing this anec- 
dote in various shapes, style, length and 
breadth. The whirligig of time has brought 
about many changes, and none equal to the 
change that has taken place in the estimation 

137 



C!)e Poe Cult 



of Poe. For twenty-five years after his death, 
the dead Hon was kicked by living asses — the 
dead raven was plucked by living buzzards, 
and other foul birds. Richard Henry Stod- 
dard was neither an ass nor a buzzard, but he 
did much to keep Poe from coming to his 
kingdom. He defended Griswold, while con- 
demning Poe. He declared that ''Griswold 
was not more the enemy of Poe than I was, or 
am.'' That's true. They were both enemies, 
one as much as the other. Stoddard's dislike 
of the poet was caused by that threat to kick 
him out of his office. On that he claims to 
have made $700, and has associated his name 
with that of the author of The Raven ; had the 
threat been actually carried out, Stoddard 
might have made twice as much money, and 
gained an immortal fame. See what he missed 
by his precipitous retreat from the sanctum 
of the irate poet ? To be kicked into fame sel- 
dom happens to a man. By acting the better 
part of valor, and running away, Stoddard 
lost the opportunity of his life. 

Walt Whitman told of a very different ex- 
perience which he had with Poe. He saw 
him once, when he called at the office of the 
Broadway Journal, as Stoddard did, to inquire 
about a piece. He says that Poe was very 
cordial: "I have a distinct and pleasant re- 

138 



Clje Poc Cult 



membrance of his looks, voice, manner and 
matter; he was very kindly and human, but 
subdued, and perhaps a little agitated/' 

Edmund Clarence Stedman, in his admirable 
essay entitled, ''Edgar Allan Poe,'' was the 
first to draw public attention to the fact that 
the poet never made a dollar except by his pen, 
and he says, moreover, the duty of self-support 
was not one to which he had been trained, and 
he adds, ''Imagine Shelley, who made his paper 
boats of bank notes, Byron and Landor, who 
had their old estates, forced to write by the 
column for their weekly board/' Then, re- 
member that Poe was brought up in luxury, 
and taught to expect a handsome fortune — 
that when he reached manhood, he was turned 
adrift without a dollar. Gifted as few are 
gifted, he made a splendid fight against fate. 



139 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



INGRAM'S LIFE OF POE. 

Ten years after Edgar A. Poe's death, a 
reaction in his favor set in, beginning with 
Mrs. Whitman's graceful Httle book, Bdgar 
Poe and his Critics. This reaction has cul- 
minated in the biography now under consid- 
eration. Like Mr. William F. Gill, and others 
w^e could name, Mr. Ingram became fascinated 
by the strange and romantic career 6i the au- 
thor of ''The Raven.'' Fascination soon be- 
came infatuation ; and for nearly ten years he 
devoted money, time, and labor to collecting 
material for a biography, which should have 
the same effect upon the other biographies of 
Poe as Aaron's rod had upon the rods of the 
Egyptians. 

In his preface, Mr. Ingram makes the 
sweeping charge that all the biographies of 
Poe that have appeared since his vindicatory 
memoir in 1874 — except one ''based upon Gris- 
wold's sketch" — have "reproduced the whole 
of his (Ingram's) material, and with scarcely 
an additional item of interest or value." Yet, 

140 



Cije poc Cult 



notwithstanding this, he quotes many interest- 
ing passages from biographies of Poe which 
have appeared since 1874; in some instances 
giving credit, in others not. In common jus- 
tice he should have given credit to the biog- 
rapher who discovered and rescued Poe's re- 
markable letter about the "tame propriety'' of 
Washington Irving's style, which Mr. Ingram 
copies in full on p. 154, Vol. i, of his work. 

Poe required no ancestors. His genius has 
thrown distinction upon a name which, other- 
wise, would long ere this have passed into 
oblivion. It was not necessary, therefore, for 
Mr. Ingram to claim that the grandfather of 
the poet ''greatly distinguished himself during 
the War of Independence.'' Even were such 
the fact, it would add nothing to Edgar Poe's 
reputation. But such was not the fact. The 
grandfather of Edgar Poe, called by courtesy 
Gen. Poe, was simply deputy quartermaster of 
the Maryland Line during the American Revo- 
lution. He performed his duty well and faith- 
fully, but it was not a position which gave him 
an opportunity to "distinguish" himself. 

The admirers of Poe will read with interest 
and pleasure Mr. Ingram's story of the ro- 
mantic love affair between Mrs. Whitman and 
the poet. It is the fullest and most satisfac- 
tory account of what has hitherto been a mys- 

141 



Ciie poe Cult 



terious episode in Poe's career. His letters to 
his ''promised bride'' during the period of their 
brief engagement are replete with expressions 
of the most exalted passion and the most en- 
thusiastic devotion. The breaking off of the 
engagement is thus told by Mr. Ingram: 

''He arrived in Providence full of the most 
sanguine hopes; he had proposed to himself a 
career of literary success, dwelling with en- 
kindling enthusiasm upon his long-cherished 
scheme of establishing a magazine that should 
give him supreme control of intellectual so- 
ciety in America. His dreams of love and 
triumph were rapidly destroyed. In a few 
days he was to be married ; he had advised his 
aunt, Mrs. Clemm, to expect his and his bride's 
arrival in New York early the following week, 
when information was given to Mrs. Whitman 
and to her relatives that he had violated the 
solemn pledge of abstinence so recently given. 
Whether this information was true, no one 
living, perchance, can say. When he arrived 
at the dwelling of Mrs. Whitman, "no token 
of the infringement of his promise was visible 
in his appearance or manner," said that lady, 
"but I was at last convinced that it would be 
in vain longer to hope against hope. I knew 
that he had irrevocably lost the power of self- 
recovery. . . /^ 

142 



C6e poe Cult 



This scene is certainly highly dramatic, and 
is a fit termination of so wild and romantic a 
love affair. Poe never knew the real cause of 
the rupture of the engagement, and, ''up to the 
time of his death does not appear to have al- 
luded to Mrs. Whitman again save in the most 
conventional manner, but the lady always 
cherished, with unfaded affection, the memory 
of her connection with the poet; and in- 
variably contrived to bring more prominently 
forward the brighter traits of her hero's char- 
acter than has been accomplished by any other 
person/' 

We admire Mr. Ingram's industry in getting 
the hitherto unpublished letters of Poe; some 
of them throw light on the complex character 
of this strange being, who, as was said of John 
Randolph, of Roanoke, ''lived and died a mys- 
tery to those who knew him best." We must, 
however, question the taste and propriety of 
resurrecting the unsavory controversy be- 
tween Poe and English. The whole affair was 
disgraceful, and reflected credit on neither. A 
biographer should know what to blot. The 
work of even the greatest writer is not all 
interesting. We have no doubt that Shake- 
speare's writing desk, if he had one, con- 
tained much that was consigned to well- 
merited oblivion. When we read of Poe taking 

143 



C!)e Poe €n\t 



credit to himself for ''running his pen 
through certain sentences referring to the 
brandy nose of Mr. Briggs (since Mr. Briggs 
is only one-third described when this nose is 
omitted),- and to the family resemblance be- 
tween the noble visage of Mr. English and 
that of the best looking but most unprincipled 
of Mr. Barnum's baboons/' we feel that Poe 
has done himself infinitely more harm than 
he has done either Mr. Briggs or Mr. Eng- 
lish by indulging in language that should be 
confined to Billingsgate, where they ''sell the 
best fish and speak the worst English." 

We will not stop to point out several unim- 
portant errors made by Mr. Ingram, but we 
have to condemn the ungenerous spirit that 
prompted him to omit all mention of Mr. Gill 
from the work. The latter has done very 
worthy, if Quixotic, service in the Poe cause. 
We are afraid that Mr. Ingram is a Httle bit 
jealous of what others have done in this mat- 
ter; that, like the Turk, he wishes to reign 
alone, and will not permit anyone else to share 
his self-assumed throne. 



144 



Clje poe Cult 



WOODBERRY'S LIFE OF POE. 

The interest in the strange and romantic 
story of Poe's Hfe seems to increase rather 
than diminish. Already nine Hves have been 
given to the world — some written by bitter 
enemies, others by injudicious friends, all 
wanting, more or less, in that calm, dispas- 
sionate tone which should characterize works 
of literary and historical interest. A tenth 
life of Poe has been written by Mr. George 
E. Woodberry, for the American Men of Let- 
ters series. In a compact volume of three 
hundred and fifty pages, we have a complete, 
reliable and interesting life of the author of 
The Raven, written with absolute literary 
candor and entirely free from prejudice, one 
way or the other. In fact, he has produced 
a work which should satisfy all readers for a 
long time to come. 

Mr. Woodberry has anticipated the possible 
cavils of the critics by carefully substantiating, 
as far as possible, the fresh and interesting in- 
formation which he has added to what was 
already known of Poe's romantic and erratic 

145 



Clie Poe Cult 



career. The fact of his enlisting in the United 
States Army has been hinted at before, but 
Mr. Woodberry proves by the records of the 
war department that Poe enhsted on the 
26th of May, 1828, and served for nearly 
twelve months, being discharged on the 15th 
of April, 1829, his friends having put a sub- 
stitute in his place w4th a view of getting him 
appointed a cadet to West Point. Mr. Wood- 
berry has thus filled up a gap in Poe's life 
which had baffled all other biographers of the 
poet. 

One of the most disagreeable accusations 
brought against the dead Poe by Griswold 
was, that while Poe was the editor of the Gen- 
tleman's Magazine, of which William E. Bur- 
ton, the comedian, was the owner, he had taken 
advantage of the latter's temporary absence 
to supplant him by starting a new magazine, 
and had obtained transcripts of the subscrip- 
tion and account books for that purpose. 
When Burton returned home, at the end of a 
fortnight, he was told that not a line of copy 
for the next number of the magazine had been 
given to the printers, and after some time 
Poe was found late in the evening at one of 
his accustomed haunts and was thus ad- 
dressed: ''Mr. Poe, I am astonished. Give 
me my manuscript, so that I can attend to the 

146 



Cfie poe Cult 



duties which you have so shamefully neglected, 
and when you are sober we will settle/' To 
which Poe is reported to have replied : ''Who 
are you that presumes to address me in this 
manner ? Burton, I am the editor of the Penn 
Magazine, and you are (hiccup) a fool." Of 
course, this ended his relations with the Gen- 
tleman's. 

Such is Griswold's story, which is now 
known to be false in every particular. Poe 
himself in a letter written to Dr. Joseph E. 
Snodgrass, editor of the Baltimore Saturday 
Visitor, says that he left thci Gentleman's 
Magazine because he disapproved of Burton's 
conduct in the matter of certain prizes of- 
fered for manuscripts. They quarreled and 
separated. Poe in his letter to Dr. Snodgrass, 
dated Philadelphia, April i, 1841, explaining 
the cause of his leaving Burton, says: ''I 
pledge you before God the solemn word of a 
gentleman, that I am temperate even to rigor. 
From the hour in which I first saw this beast 
of calumniators to the hour in which I retired 
from his office in uncontrollable disgust at his 
chicanery, arrogance, ignorance, and brutality, 
nothing stronger than water ever passed my 
lips. You Will never be brought to believe 
that I could write what I daily write, as I 
write it, were I as this man would induce those 

147 



C!)e poe Cult 



who know me not to believe. At no period of 
my life was I ever what men call intemperate. 
I was never in the habit of intoxication. I 
never drunk drams, etc., but for a brief period, 
while I resided in Richmond and edited the 
Messenger, I certainly did give way, at long 
intervals, to the temptation held out on all sides 
by the spirit of Southern conviviality. My 
sensitive temperament could not stand an ex- 
citement which was an every-day matter to 
my companions. In short, it sometimes hap- 
pened that I was completely intoxicated. For 
some days after each excess I was invariably 
confined to bed. But it is now quite four years 
since I have abandoned every kind of alcho- 
holic drink — four years with the exception of 
a single deviation, which occurred shortly after 
my leaving Burton, and when I was induced 
to resort to the occasional use of cider, with 
the hope of relieving a nervous attack. You 
wall thus see, frankly stated, the whole amount 
of my sin.'' 

Mr. Woodberry has done a good work by 
rescuing this important correspondence from 
the columns of a daily newspaper and giving 
it a permanent place in American literary 
biography. 

For nearly a quarter of a century after Poe's 
untimely death, Griswold's infamous memoir 

148 



C[)e poe Cult 



was accepted by the world as correct, and 
followed by other biographers until 1875, when 
the er€;ction of the monument over the poet's 
long-neglected grave in Baltimore led to a 
new investigation of his life. This, continued 
to the present time, has resulted in the com- 
plete refutation of all of Griswold's slanders 
and the bringing to light, from time to time, of 
important facts, affecting Poe as a man and 
a poet, until, as we have before remarked, the 
whole story of his life has been related in Mr. 
Woodberry's work. 

Poe has had a singular literary fate; long 
neglected by his own countrymen, the Eng- 
lish, French and German critics recognized 
him as the most original of all the American 
poets. 



149 



^ht poe Cult 



RECENT BIOGRAPHIES OF EDGAR A. 

POE.* 

When Dr. Johnson heard that Boswell in- 
tended to write his Hfe, he is reported to have 
said that he would prevent so great a calamity 
by taking the life of his presumptive biog- 
rapher. In this matter, as, indeed, in many 
others, Johnson was wrong. Those profound 
philosophical works, by which he hoped to be 
long remembered, are not now read by one in 
ten thousand, but Boswell's biography will 
keep alive an interest in Johnson to the most 
distant posterity. Had Edgar A. Poe known 
how Griswold would write his life, he might 
more justly have entertained the murderous 
feeling attributed to Dr. Johnson. Yet Gris- 
wold's memoir of Poe has been an advantage 
to the poet. Had he written a truthful and 
satisfactory biography, it would have been 
accepted as such by the world, and perhaps 
long since have been consigned to the 
neglected shelves of public and private li- 

*International Review, January, i88l. 

150 



Cfte Poe Cult 



braries; but the manifest injustice of Gris- 
wold's sketch induced the friends and ad- 
mirers of Poe to examine his biographer's 
damaging statements, to sweep away the 
falsehood from his disgraceful stories, and 
to give to the world all the strange and re- 
markable incidents which made the life of the 
author of ''The Raven'" more romantic than 
fiction. 

Carlyle says that ''a well-written life is 
almost as rare as a well-spent one/' Eight 
lives of Poe have been published. That so 
many biographies should be written of one 
author is a very noticeable circumstance. 
Byron, who occupied the attention of the world 
more than any other modern writer, had only 
three or four biographies written of him; 
Dickens, the most popular author of the last 
century, has had only two or three; Bulwer 
has had none; Bryant, one; Irving, two; Hal- 
leck, one; Moore, one, and Thackeray, if we 
except one or two imperfect sketches and the 
execrable stuff published by Anthony Trollope, 
has had none. 

We propose in this article to examine two 
recent lives of Poe. Mr. Gill's book was writ- 
ten with a twofold object — the deification of 
Poe and the damnation of Griswold. It is 
hard to say which feeling predominates. For 

151 



Cfje poe Cult 



our own part, we do not believe that Poe was 
so good as Gill represents him or that Gris- 
wold was so bad. Mr. Gill claims that his is 
the most complete life of Poe that has been 
published. He begins his life by a sketch of 
Poe's imaginary Italian ancestry, which the 
late Sarah Helen Whitman invented, and first 
pubHshed in her 'Toe and his Critics." In a 
letter written to me by Mrs. Whitman the year 
before her death, she says : ''For all I said on 
the subject I alone am responsible. A distant 
relative of mine, a descendant, like myself, of 
Nicholas Le Poer, had long ministered to my 
genealogical proclivities by stories which, from 
my childhood, had vaguely haunted and 
charmed my imagination. When I discovered 
certain facts in Poe's history, of which he had 
previously made little account, he seemed 
greatly impressed by my theory of our rela- 
tionship. Of course, I endowed him with my 
traditionary heirlooms. An aptitude for gene- 
alogical researches is my specialty, and it 
would require but a few slender links to con- 
nect your Franco-Italian name with that 
Didier King of Lombardy, who surrendered 
his Iron crown to Charlemagne and gave him 
his daughter in marriage.''^ 

So much for Poe's ''long descent.'' But he 
could well afford to be the first of his name; he 

152 



Ctie poe Cult 



did not require ancestors, coats o£ arms, or 
coronets. We seek not for ancestors, im- 
mediate or remote, of Shakespeare, Dante, or 
Virgil ; they have crowned their names with a 
lustre which kings cannot bestow. 

Mr. Gill is guilty of some mistakes which 
should be corrected. Edgar Poe's father was 
not the fourth, but the eldest son of his 
parents. It was not after the breach between 
Poe and Mr. Allan that the latter married his 
second wife: it was before; the marriage was 
the cause of the quarrel. Poe did not utter on 
his deathbed the nonsense about ''the Elysian 
bowers of the undiscovered spirit world'' — 
Judge Neilson Poe, his nearest living relative, 
who was present at the death of his cousin, 
says : ''He was taken in a dying condition to 
the University Hospital, where he remained 
insensible to the last." 

We regret that we cannot truthfully praise 
Mr. Gill's literary style. In mentioning the sim- 
ple fact that Poe printed "The Raven" anony- 
mously, he thus expresses himself: "When in 
his silent vigils, enthralled by the imaginative 
ecstasy which often possessed and over- 
powered him, he conceived and wrought out 
this marvelous inspiration, what wonder is it 
that his delicate sensibility should prompt him 
to conceal from the rude gaze of his material 

153 



^ht poe Cult 



audience the secret springs o£ his inner con- 
sciousness, by printing- his chef-d'oeuvre over 
an assumed name, and hedging its origin about 
with the impenetrable veil of fiction?'' In an 
elaborate analysis of the same poem, Mr. Gill 
indulges in the following language: ''Postu- 
lating the opinion which we venture to ad- 
vance here upon the result of a process of 
psychological introversion, which conclusion is 
confirmed by several of Poe's most intimate 
acquaintances now living, strengthened by a 
chain of conclusive circumstantial evidence, we 
have arrived at a theory of the origin of the 
poem that has received the approval of, etc/' 
Here is a still higher flight: ''That some of 
the most exquisite imaginative fabrics ever 
constructed have been wrought from the sug- 
gestions afiforded by some especial experience, 
or by a chance incident of circumstance, there 
are many familiar examples to demonstrate.'^ 
When stripped of its covering of verbiage, this 
means simply that authors frequently write 
from their own experience — a truism which 
will scarcely be denied. 

Mr. Gill's grammar is not always as Caesar's 
wife was required to be, above suspicion. In 
fact, he sometimes lapses into such mistakes 
as these: "Some of his best prose tales were 
done at this time, when the yoke of privation 

154 



Cfte Poe Cult 



sat but lightly upon his shoulders/ In speak- 
ing of Poe's reading of ''The Raven," he says, 
^'He was too good an elocutionist to fail to 
adequately voice his conceptions/' Again : ''By 
matter-of-fact minds, incapable of sensing deli- 
cate distinctions, poets, from Shakespeare 
down, have been, and will continue to be, ad- 
judged guilty of arrant plagiarism/' It is a 
pity that Mr. Gill does not know the "delicate 
distinction'' between a verb and a noun. 

We mark these errors in no unkind spirit, 
but we think it is the critic's duty to discover 
and expose faults more than to praise beauties. 
We thank Mr. Gill for giving us the severe 
criticism which Poe wrote upon Griswold's 
"Poets and Poetry of America/' This was the 
secret cause of Griswold's enmity. He nursed 
his anger for ten years, and, when Poe was 
helpless in his grave, vilified the character of 
the deceased under the guise of friendship 
Poe certainly handled Griswold's book with- 
out gloves. He called it "miserable" and its 
authory "a toady;" he declared that "reason- 
ing and thinking were entirely out of Gris- 
wold's sphere," etc. With prophetic ken, Poe 
declared at the close of the article that Gris- 
wold would be "forgotten, save only by those 
whom he had injured and insulted; he will 
sink into oblivion, without leaving a landmark 

155 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



to tell that he once existed ; or, if he is spoken 
of hereafter, he will be quoted as the unfaith- 
ful servant who abused his trust/' 

Entertaining as Poe's criticisms always are, 
still we think that an original genius, capable 
of producing so remarkable a poem as ''The 
Raven," is better employed in affording sub- 
jects for criticism than in acting as a critic 
himself. Dunces have to be scourged, the 
literary temple has to be swept clean ; but such 
work belongs not to a poet of exquisite genius. 
We do not cut blocks with a razor ; we should 
not put Pegasus under the saddle. Goldsmith 
was a fine critic, yet who reads his criticisms 
now? But his ''Traveller,'' his "Deserted Vil- 
lage,'' his "Vicar of Wakefield," are immortal. 
Tennyson might have written admirable 
criticism of poetry, but the world would not 
have taken it in fair exchange for "In 
Memoriam," "The Princess," and "The Idyls 
of the King." Wordsworth calls criticism an 
"inglorious employment," and adds: "If the 
time consumed in writing critiques on the 
works of others were given to original com- 
position, it would be much better employed." 
We take the liberty of differing from this 
opinion, thinking on the contrary, that criticism 
is a most important department of letters, and 
of infinite value to literature. Goethe was a 

156 



Cfje Poe Cult 



critic, Sainte-Beuve was a critic, Macaulay 
was a critic, Matthew Arnold is a critic. 
Surely their ''employment" was not ''in- 
glorious/' But we do think that a writer of 
Poe's peculiar gifts should have been much 
better employed in original composition than 
in writing criticisms, however brilliant. The 
following passage will show how Poe's ability 
in this department was appreciated in his life- 
time by one of the most fastidious of American 
scholars — Horace Binney Wallace: 

"As an analytical critic, Poe possessed abil- 
ities quite unrivalled in this country, and per- 
haps on the other side of the water. We have 
scarcely ever taken up one of his more critical 
papers on some author or work worthy of his 
strength, without a sense of surprise at the 
novel and profound views from which his in- 
quiries began, nor followed their development 
without the closest interest, nor laid the essay 
down without admiration and respect for the 
masculine and acute understanding with which 
we had coped during the perusal.'' 

While according such high praise to Poe's 
critical abilities, Mr. Wallace adds that, "in the 
case of inventive genius so brilliant and vigor- 
ous as shown in his poems, we feel that criti- 
cism, even of the highest kind, is an employ- 
ment below the true measure of its dignity, 

157 



Clje poe Cult 



and, we may say, its duty ; for to be a tender of 
a light in another man's tomb is not fit occupa- 
tion for one whose ray may abide against all 
the fears of night and storm and time. Poe 
possessed unusual powers of close logical rea- 
soning; he was gifted with a miraculous power 
of sarcasm, and to him the torva vohtptas of 
literary controversy possessed a fatal fascina- 
tion/^ 

While lamenting that Poe did not develop 
more fully his unrivalled gifts in original com- 
position, we must remember that during all his 
later life he was a sufferer from res an^usta 
domi, and whatever found the readiest market 
was what he was compelled to produce. He 
could not enjoy the luxury of devoting his 
genius to the composition of such poems as 
"'The Raven," which paid him ten dollars, when 
a criticism like that on ''Flaccus,'' which he 
could dash off carrente calamo, paid him fif- 
teen dollars. 

Poetry occupied very little of Poe's intel- 
lectual life : it was for him but a ''divine play- 
thing,'^ as Heinp said of himself. Poe's poems 
were attempts to represent in verse the beauti- 
ful and unearthly beings whom his soul wor- 
•shipped. In speaking of Maurice de Guerin, 
Matthew Arnold's says: ''To a nature like 
his, endowed with a passion for perfection, the 

158 



Cfte poe Cult 



necessity to produce constantly, to produce 
whether in the vein, to produce something good 
or bad or middhng as it may happen, but at all 
events something, is the most intolerable of 
tortures/' It was his passion for perfection, 
his disdain for all imperfect poetical work, 
which made Poe so severe a critic. 

Mr. Gill devotes the greater part of his ap- 
pendix to an account of the proceedings attend- 
ing the unveiling of the Poe Monument in 
Baltimore in November, 1875. We must con- 
demn his bad taste in quoting from the con- 
temporary account of the ceremonial such pas- 
sages as these : ''Mr. William F. Gill, who has 
done much by his written vindication of the 
poet's memory to remove false impressions, 
gave the finest rendition of ''The Raven'' to 
which we have ever listened. The large audi- 
ence was spellbound by his perfect elocution, 
and his resemblance to the recognized ideals 
of Mr. Poe himself made the personation of 
his horror and despair almost painful." We 
were present on this occasion, but we saw no 
person "spellbound." We have seen every 
likeness of Poe extant, but we fail to dis- 
cover any resemblance between the author of 
"The Raven" and Mr. Gill. Again he quotes: 
"After the monument was unveiled, 'Annabel 
Lee' was recited in the same masterly manner 

159 



Cfje poe Cult 



by Mr. Gill/' Further on he says: 'Toe's 
famous poem, ''The Raven/' was read by Mr. 
Gill, who was made the recipient of an ovation 
at its close at the hands of the audience.'' Our 
presence at the time does not enable us clearly 
to understand what he means by "an ovation 
at the hands of the audience." 

The melancholy life and death of the un- 
happy master of "The Raven" seem to have 
thrown a spell over all his later biographers, 
especially those who did not know him in life. 
In their endeavor to present him to the world 
in the most favorable light, they have not been 
satisfied to represent him under the form of a 
cloud with a silver lining, but almost as a re- 
splendent sun. If this be right, then the pres- 
ent writer is wrong. But Mr. Gill stands 
facile princeps in this particular. He set out 
with the fixed determination to whiten Poe and 
blacken Griswold. Like the famous knight of 
La Mancha, he attacked all obstructions which 
stood in the way, and the result has been that 
those who knew Poe will scarcely recognize 
him as painted by Mr. Gill. Still, with all its 
faults, the work is interesting; but it would 
have been much more valuable had the ma- 
terial it contains been placed in the hands of 
a skifled literary man. 

We now turn to Mr. Ingram's biography. 

i6o 



Cl)e poe Cult 



To him belongs the credit of having produced 
the most elaborate and complete Life of Poe 
which has yet been given to the world. He de- 
tails the poet's history from his birth in Bos- 
ton in 1809, to his death in Baltimore in 1849. 

Mr. Ingram has been very industrious in 
collecting the material for his work. He has 
gathered all facts obtainable ; but he has writ- 
ten his biography in a spirit of childish ad- 
miration of Poe, and determined hostility 
toward all other biographers of the poet. He 
seems to labor under the delusion that Ameri- 
cans neither appreciated the genius nor knew 
anything about the life of Poe until he kindly 
enlightened them. Carlyle says the fact that, a 
quarter of a century after his death, interest in 
Burns continued unabated proves that the poet 
was not a common man. Interest in Poe has 
not only not abated during the more than a 
quarter of a century which has elapsed since 
his death, but year after year it has continued 
to increase. 

When Alexander set out at the age of 
twenty to conquer the world, he depended 
upon his sword, with hope for inspiration. 
When Edgar A. Poe set out at the age of 
twenty to win fame and fortune, he depended 
upon his pen. It was a brave act in those days 
of our country's literary poverty. The time 

161 



Cfje poe Cult 



had passed when poets were the chosen com- 
panions of statesmen and princely merchants; 
the time had not arrived when Uterary men 
could live by their pens — yet Poe, with a 
knightly disdain of fear, rushed into the arena, 
choosing Sydney's brave motto, ''Atit viam in- 
veniam aut faciamf' Collecting his verses to- 
gether, he published them under the name of 
^'Tamerlane and Minor Poems,'' having pre- 
viously sent specimens to John Neal, who, fifty 
years ago, was a prominent journalist. He 
was at that time the editor of the ''Yankee," 
and replied to the aspiring young poet in the 
columns of his paper: ''If E. A. P., of Balti- 
more, whose lines about heaven, which, al- 
though nonsense, are rather exquisite non- 
sense, would do himself justice, he might make 
a beautiful and, perhaps, a magnificent poem." 
The lines referred to are in "Fairy-Land." In 
response to this first recognition of his ability 
to do something, Poe wrote the following note : 
"I am young, not yet twenty; am a poet, if 
deep worship of all beauty can make me one, 
and wish to be so in the common meaning of 
the word. I would give the world to embody 
one-half the ideas afloat in my imagina- 
tion ... I appeal to you as a man that 
loves the same beauty that I adore— the beauty 
of the natural blue sky and the sunshiny earth. 

162 



Cle Poe Cult 



There can be no tie more strong than that of 
brother for brother. It is not so much that 
they love one another as that they both love the 
same parent; their affections are always 
running in the same direction, the same chan- 
nel, and cannot help mingling. I am, and have 
been from my childhood, an idler. It cannot, 
therefore, be said that — 

*I left a calling for this idle trade, 
A duty broke, a father disobeyed/ 

for I have no father nor mother.'' 

It does not appear that Poe's first literary 
venture attracted any attention or had any 
sale; yet the little volume contains thoughts 
and suggestions superior in point of imagina- 
tion to anything in Byron's early poems. In- 
deed, the delicate grace and musical rhythm 
of portions of ''Tamerlane" give a promise of 
the metrical sweetness which distinguishes all 
Poe's poetry. 

The young poet soon discovered that the way 
of Hterature was far from being a 'Trimrose 
path;" that it led through thorns and briers, 
with but a few flowers to cheer the weary way. 
After ten years of literary struggle, we find 
him, in 1842, anxious to obtain a livelihood 
''independent of letters." Poe had, by this 
time, made a national reputation by his writ- 

163 



Cfie poe Cult 



ings. He had edited with distinguished suc- 
cess the ''Southern Literary Messenger/' the 
''Gentleman's Magazine/' and "Graham's 
Magazine/' he had written "The Fall of the 
House of Usher/' "Ligeia/' "William Wilson/' 
the "Murders in the Rue Morgue/' and other 
tales of mystery and imagination ; he had pub- 
lished his best critical essays, and some of his 
sweetest lyrics — yet he writes this almost de- 
spairing letter to a friend, asking his assist- 
ance in securing a small government clerkship 
in Washington : 

"I wash to God I could visit Washington. 
But the old story, you know — I have no money, 
not even enough to take me there, saying noth- 
ing of getting back. It is a hard thing to be 
poor, but as I am kept so by an honest mo- 
tive, I dare not complain. Your suggestion 
about Mr. Kennedy is well timed; and here, 
Thomas, you can do me a true service. Call 
upon Mr. Kennedy — you know him, I believe; 
if not introduce yourself; he is a perfect gen- 
tleman, and will give you a cordial welcome. 
Speak to him of my wishes, and urge him to 
see the Secretary of War in my behalf, or one 
of the other Secretaries, or President Tyler. I 
mention, in particular, the Secretary of War, 
because I have been at West Point, and this 
may stand me in some stead. I would be glad 

164 



C^e Poe Cult 



to get almost any appointment — even a $500 
one — so that I may have something independ- 
ent of letters for a subsistence. To coin one's 
brain into silver, at the nod of a master, is, to 
my thinking, the hardest task in the world. 
Mr. Kennedy has been at all times a true friend 
to me — he was the first true friend I ever 
had; I am indebted to him for life itself. He 
will be willing to help me I know, but needs 
urging, for he is always head and ears in busi- 
ness. Thomas, may I depend upon you?'' 

It is not known what steps were taken to ad- 
vance Poe's interest in this matter, but we 
know that he failed to secure ''even a five-hun- 
dred-dollar" clerkship. Had he obtained a 
government appointment, it is not very likely 
that he would have kept it. He would have 
found the dull routine of official life even a 
harder task than ''coining one's brain into sil- 
ver, at the nod of a master ;" and the nervous 
restlessness which he said haunted him as a 
fiend, would have driven him back to literature 
as a relief. 

In the Winter of 1845 the fame of Edgar A. 
Poe was established by the production of "The 
Raven." The almost universal verdict of the 
world has placed this among the famous single 
poems, like the "Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard," the "Deserted Village," etc. "The 

165 



Cfte poe Cult 



Raven'' fixes the attention by its sad and mys- 
terious story, its rich but sombre coloring, and 
by the almost miraculous melody of its rhythm. 
It seems wild and meaningless upon the first 
perusal, but we turn to it again and again, and 
our interest grows by what it feeds upon. Mr. 
James E. Murdock, the elocutionist, prefaced 
his reading of the poem by saying he knew Poe 
well, and from his conversations with the poet 
he understood that Lenore was intended to rep- 
resent his happy and innocent youth, and The 
Raven his dark and unhappy manhood. Be 
this as it may, the informing spirit of the poem 
is: 

"The rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named 
Lenore." 

An ordinary versifier would have repeated 
this beautiful name continually. Poe was too 
consummate a literary artist for that : he pro- 
duced a better effect by a ''masterly frugality 
of repetition.'' In the second and fifth verses, 
by its ''quick and sudden duplication" he fixes 
Lenore in the mind of the reader, and con- 
tinually suggests it in all the other verses, until 
the poem closes with the despairing wail — 

"And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating 
on the floor 

Shall be lifted — nevermore!'' 

i66 



fie poc Cult 



It has been said, with equal truth and 
beauty, that on the dusky wings of the 
''Raven,'' Edgar A. Poe will sail securely over 
the gulf of oblivion to the eternal shore. 

The increased reputation which followed the 
publication of ''The Raven" stimulated Poe's 
literary activity. But, with all his fame and 
work, he still felt it hard to keep the wolf from 
the door with no other weapon than his pen. 
A few weeks after "The Raven" had made Poe 
the lion of the season, we find him writing in 
the "Broadway Journal" an article entitled, 
"Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison 
House," which "throws a lurid light upon the 
mysteries of the unfortunate poet's impecunios- 
ity." In this mournful paper occurs the fol- 
lowing paragraph : 

"The want of an international copyright 
law by rendering it nearly impossible to obtain 
anything from the booksellers in the way of 
remuneration for literary labor, has had the 
efifect of forcing many of our best writers into 
service of the magazines and reviews, which, 
with a pertinacity that does them credit, keep 
up in a certain or uncertain degree the good 
old saying that even in the thankless field of 
letters the laborer is worthy of his hire. How 
— by dint of what dogged instinct of the honest 
and proper — these journals have continued to 

167 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



persist in their paying practices is a point we 
have had much difficulty in settHng to our satis- 
faction, and we have been forced to settle it 
at last upon no more reasonable ground than 
that of a still lingering esprit de patrie. That 
magazines can live and not only live but thrive, 
and not only thrive but afford to disburse 
money for original contributions, are facts 
which can only be solved, under the circum- 
stances, by the really fanciful but still agree- 
able supposition that there is somewhere still 
existing an ember not altogether quenched 
among the fires of good feeling for letters and 
literary men that once animated the American 
bosom. These magazine editors and pro- 
prietors pay (that is the word) ; and with your 
true poor-devil author the smallest favors are 
sure to be thankfully received. No; the il- 
liberality lies at the door of the demagogue- 
ridden public, who suffer their anointed dele- 
gates (or perhaps aroynted, which is it?) to 
insult the common sense of them (the public) 
by making orations in our national halls on the 
beauty and conveniency of robbing the literary 
Europe on the highway, and on the gross ab- 
surdity in especial of admitting so unprincipled 
a principle that a man has any right and title 
either to his own brains or the flimsy material 
that he chooses to spin out of them, like a con- 

i68 



Clie Poe Cult 



founded caterpillar as he is. If anything of 
this gossamer character stands in need of pro- 
tection, why, we have our hands full at once 
with the silkworms and the morns multicaulis/' 

Poe suffered as much as any author of his 
time from the want of an international copy- 
right law between the United States and Great 
Britain. His tales were copied constantly into 
the English periodicals and translated into the 
French Journals. As to the effects of travel 
on literary wares, he says: 

''It is astonishing to see how a magazine 
article, like a traveller, spruces up after cross- 
ing the sea. We ourselves have had the honor 
of being pirated without mercy; but as we 
found our articles improved by the process (at 
least in the opinion of our countrymen), we 
said nothing, as a matter of course. We have 
written paper after paper which attracted no 
attention at all until it appeared as original in 
Bentley's 'Miscellany' or the Paris 'Charivari.' 
The Boston 'Notion' (edited by Rufus W. Gris- 
wold) once abused us very lustily for having 
written 'The House of Usher.' Not long 
afterwards Bentley published it anonymously, 
as original with itself; whereupon 'The No- 
tion,' having forgotten that we wrote it, not 
only lauded it ad nauseam, but copied it in 
totor 

169 



Cfte Poe Cult 



We regret that Mr. Ingram should have 
violated good taste and decorum by entering 
into the disgraceful squabbles which embit- 
tered the last years of Poe's life. It would 
have been better had they been allowed to re- 
main buried in the long forgotten journals in 
which they were first published. Whether 
Mr. English was thrashed or Mr. Briggs had 
a bottle-nose are questions about which the 
present and future generations of readers will 
care very little. Whether one man was a 
'Vagabond'' and another the ''autocrat of all 
the asses'' is something in which we are very 
slightly interested; but in Poe himself, both 
as a man and a poet, the world has an ever in- 
creasing interest. We think, therefore, that it 
will be a pleasure to read what Prof. Valen- 
tine, of Richmond, says of his personal appear- 
ance: 

"His brow was fine and expressive, his 
eyes dark and restless ; in the mouth, firmness 
mingled with an element of scorn and discon- 
tent. His gait was firm and erect, but his 
manner nervous and emphatic. He was of fine 
address and cordial in his intercourse with his 
friends, but looked as though he rarely smiled 
from joy, to which he seemed to be a stranger ; 
that mxight be partly attributed to the great 
struggle for self-control in which he seemed 

170 



Cfee poe Cult 



to be constantly engaged. There was little 
variation and much sadness in the intonation 
of his voice, yet this very sadness was so com- 
pletely in harmony with his history as to ex- 
cite on the part of this community a deep in- 
terest in him both as a lecturer and a reader/' 

The Spring of 1849 found Poe still strug- 
gling to make a living by literary work. He 
had been ill, and upon becoming convalescent, 
had lapsed into a melancholy state of mind, to 
which he now became habitually subject. He 
believed himself destined to an early death, but 
his haughty soul ''defied all portents of im- 
pending doom.'' To an astonishing degree he 
retained his hope for the future even in the 
midst of his dreary present. Undaunted by the 
worst blows that ''unmerciful disaster" in- 
flicted upon him, he determined to struggle on 
and on, hoping against hope, or, if despairing, 
to follow the noble advice of Burke — "even 
in despair to work on." This determination 
is forcibly expressed in a letter, which about 
this time he wrote to "Annie," one of the most 
cherished friends of his lonesome later years: 

"You know how cheerfully I wrote to you 
not long ago — about my prospects, hopes ; how 
I anticipated soon being out of difficulty. Well ! 
all seems to be frustrated, at least for the pres- 
ent. As usual, misfortune never comes single, 

171 



Cije poe Cult 



and I have met one disappointment after an- 
other. The 'Columbian' in the first place, 
failed; then 'Post's Union' (taking with it my 
principal dependence) ; then the 'Whig Review' 
was forced to stop paying for contributions; 
then the 'Democratic,' then (on account of his 
oppression and insolence) I was obliged to 

quarrel finally with ; and then, to crown 

all, the ' ' (from which I anticipated so 

much, and with which I had made a regular 
engagement for ten dollars a week through- 
out the year) has written a circular to cor- 
respondents, pleading poverty, and declining 
to receive any more articles; more than this, 
the 'S. L. Messenger,' which owes me a great 
deal, cannot pay just yet; and, altogether, I am 
reduced to 'Sartain' and 'Graham' — both very 
precarious. No doubt, Annie, you attribute 
my 'gloom' to these events, but you would be 
wrong. It is not in the power of any merely 
worldly considerations, such as these, to de- 
press me. . . . No; my sadness is imac- 
countable — and this makes me the more sad. I 
am full of dark forebodings. Nothing cheers 
or comforts me. My life seems wasted — the 
future looks a dreary blank ; but I will struggle 
on, and 'hope against hope.' " 

In a few months the struggle ended, as we 
all know. 



172 



Cfee poe Cult 



From a long and careful study of Poe's 
character, it does not appear that he was one 
of the most amiable of human beings; but at 
the same time it must in justice be admitted 
that he suffered more than the common lot 
from ''the slings and arrows of outrageous 
fortune/^ From his secorfd to his eighteenth 
year, he lived in affluence, and was taught to 
consider himself the sole heir to a splendid 
fortune, when suddenly, without warning, he 
was thrown upon the world friendless and 
alone. When Tom Jones was turned out of 
the house of his adopted father. Squire All- 
worthy, the Squire gave him sufficient money 
to enable him to earn an honest livelihood, say- 
ing, ''As I have educated you like a child of 
my own, I will not turn you naked into the 
world." Poe received no such treatment from 
his adopted father : he was dismissed penniless. 
The rest of his life was one continued struggle 
against poverty and want, at times without 
the simplest necessaries of life. Conscious of 
possessing rare intellectual gifts, he saw him- 
self often neglected by the world and con- 
demned by men infinitely his inferiors in all 
things except worldly knowledge. It cannot 
be said of Poe that, like a block of marble, he 
became more polished and statue-like by every 
stroke of misfortune. On the contrary, he be- 

173 



Cfte poe Cult 



came more defiant, desperate, reckless, but not 
more admirable. The companions of his boy- 
hood and early youth unite in saying that he 
was a fine, generous and high-spirited nature, 
and attribute the change which took place in 
his character to the quarrel with Mr. Allan and 
its consequences. Some of his summer friends 
turned away from him, while others re- 
proached him for ingratitude, not knowing the 
circumstances of the case. His proud and 
sensitive spirit keenly felt the sudden change 
from wealth to poverty, from social position 
to neglect ; and then began that unequal battle 
with the world which ended in a charity hos- 
pital in Baltimore. Swift's epitaph should be 
Poe's; for does not he also sleep ''ubi saeva 
indi^natio cor ulterius lac er are neqitif? 



174 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



THE TRUE STORY OF POE'S DEATH. 

Sleep restfully after life's fevered dream! 
Sleep wayward heart ! 

Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman. 

No American poet has attracted more at- 
tention, living and dead, than Edgar A. Poe. 
Nine Hves of him have been written, yet about 
no celebrated writer of modern times has it 
been so difficult to get the real facts of his Hfe 
and death. According to some of his biog- 
raphers he mingled among men like a bewild- 
ered angel ; while others describe him as a pry- 
ing fiend, or an Ismaelite, with his hands 
against everyone and everyone's against him. 
The time and place of his birth were for many 
years uncertain; even now some of his biog- 
raphers still differ as to that matter. The 
place of his burial was at one time undecided, 
but that was definitely settled, in 1875, when 
his remains were discovered in Westminster 
churchyard, Baltimore, and a monument seven 
and a half feet high erected over his grave. 
The cause of his death, and the circumstances 

175 



Ci)e I^oe Cult 



attending it, have not yet been definitely de- 
termined, and everything that throws any light 
upon the subject will prove interesting to his 
many admirers. 

A former Baltimorean, now living in San 
Francisco, gives what he claims to be a true 
account of the poet's last days and death. 
This is his story: ''I was an intimate asso- 
ciate of Edgar Allan Poe for years. Much 
that has been said and written regarding his 
death is false. His habitual resort in Balti- 
more was the Widow Meagher's place. This 
was an oyster-stand and liquor-bar on the city 
front, corresponding in some respects wath the 
coffee houses of San Francisco. It was fre- 
quented much by printers, and ranked as a re- 
spectable place, where parties could enjoy a 
game of cards, or engage in social conversa- 
tion. Poe was a great favorite with the old 
woman. His favorite seat was just behind 
the stand, and about as quiet and sociable as 
an oyster himself. He went by the name of 
'Bard,' and when parties came into the shop, 
it was 'Bard, come up and take a nip;' or, 
'Bard, come and take a hand in this game.' 

"Whenever the Widow Meagher met with 
any incident or idea that tickled her fancy, 
she would ask the 'Bard' to versify it. Poe 
always complied, writing many a witty couplet, 

176 



Cfie Poe Cult 



and at times poems of some length. These 
verses, quite as meritorious as some by which 
his name was immortaHzed, were thus frit- 
tered into obscurity. It was in this little shop 
that Poe's attention was called to an advertise- 
ment in a Philadelphia paper of a prize for 
the best story ; and it was there that he wrote 
his famous 'Gold Bug/ which carried off the 
hundred dollar prize. [Incorrect.] 

"Poe had been shifting for several years be- 
tween Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. 
He had been away from Baltimore for three or 
four months, when he turned up one evening 
at the Widow Meagher's. I was there when 
he came in. He privately told me that he had 
been to Richmond, and was on his way North 
to get ready for his wedding. It was drink- 
ing all around and repeat, until the crowd was 
pretty jolly. It was the night before election, 
and four of us, including Poe, started uptown. 
We had not gone half a dozen squares when 
we were nabbed by a gang of men who were 
on the lookout for voters to 'coop.' It was the 
practice in those days to seize people, whether 
drunk or sober, lock them up until the polls 
were opened, and then march them around to 
every precinct, where they were made to vote 
the ticket of the party that controlled the 
coop. Our coop was in the rear of an engine 

177 



Clie Poe Cult 



house on Calvert Street. It was part of the 
game to stupefy the prisoners with drugged 
liquor. Well, the next day, we were voted at 
thirty-one different places, and over and over, 
it being as much a man's life was worth to 
rebel. Poe was so badly drugged that after 
he was carried on two or three different 
rounds, the gang said it was no use to vote a 
dead man any longer, so they shoved him into 
a cab and sent him to a hospital to get him out 
of the way. 

''The commonly accepted story that Poe died 
from the effects of dissipation is all bosh. It 
was nothing of the kind. He died from lauda- 
num, or some other poison, that was forced 
upon him in the coop. He was in a dying con- 
dition while he v/as being voted around the 
city. The story by Griswold of Poe's having 
been on a week's spree and being picked up on 
the street is false. I saw him shoved into the 
cab myself, and he told me he had just ar- 
rived in the city.'^ 

The above narrative will form an interest- 
ing chapter in the life and death of the poet 
whose life was a romance and whose death 
was a tragedy. The account of Poe's last days 
agrees in several respects with the account 
which the late Chief Judge Neilson Poe, of 
Baltimore, gave to the present writer. It's 

178 



€:iit poe Cult 



painful to think that a man of Poe's wonderful 
genius should, after a life of intolerable 
misery, die in the wretched manner above de- 
scribed. But, it must now be admitted that 
the author of the Raven was ''cooped" and 
drugged to death by political roughs, who 
used the hapless poet as a ''repeater" at a local 
election. Others have vaguely stated this be- 
fore, and the detailed account now given by 
one who was with Poe at the time confirms 
the horrible story. 



179 



C6e poe Cult 



THE GRAVE OF POE.* 



It was on a cold, dull and dreary day, in the 
Winter of 1871, while attending the funeral 
of Mrs. Maria Clemm, the aunt and mother- 
in-law of Edgar A. Poe, that I first saw the 
nameless grave of that gifted but most un- 
fortunate poet. She died the day before, and 
her last request w^as to be buried by the side 
of her ''darling Eddie,'' in Westminster 
churchyard, corner of Fayette and Greene 
Streets, Baltimore. No stone has ever marked 
the place of his burial, though, shortly after 
his death, a marble was prepared, which was 
accidentally broken in the stonecutter's shop, 
only a few days before it was to be erected. It 
bore the following inscription : 

"HIC 

TANDEM FELICIS 

CONDUNTUR RELIQUIAE 

EDGARI ALLAN POE. 

OBIIT OCT. 7, 1849, 

AET 40. 

*Appleton's Journal, January 27, 1872. 

^Several statements in this article I have since discovered 
were incorrect. 

180 



Cfje Poe Cult 



''Hie tandem felicis!'' Here at last he is 
happy ! 

Can anything be more beautifully pathetic? 
Here, misguided child of genius, victim of 
want, of disappointment, and of thy own fiery 
passions, thou didst find that peace which was 
denied thee during life! 

In my conversations with Mrs. Clemm, she 
gave me many interesting facts about Poe's 
personal appearance, his dress, etc. He was 
five feet eight and a quarter inches high; 
slightly but elegantly formed; his eyes were 
dark gray, almond-shaped, with long black 
lashes; his forehead was broad, massive, and 
white; his mouth and teeth were beautiful; he 
wore a long but not heavy mustache; his hair 
w^as dark brown, almost black, and curly; his 
feet and hands small as a woman's. He was 
very neat — even fastidious — about his dress; 
was fond of gray clothes; he always wore a 
turndown collar and black cravat. 

His custom was to walk up and down his 
library when engaged in literary composition. 
He never sat down to write until he had ar- 
ranged the plot, the characters, and even the 
language he was to use. To this may be at- 
tributed the extraordinary finish which his 
compositions display. 

The true story of Poe's death has never 

i8i 



Cl)c Poe Cult 



been correctly told. It is this : In the Summer 
of 1849, h^ l^f^ New York for Virginia. In 
Richmond he met Mrs. Elmira Shelton, whom 
he had known in his youth, renewed his ac- 
quaintance, and in a few weeks they were en- 
gaged to be married. He wrote to his friends 
in the North that he should pass the remainder 
of his life in Virginia, where the happiest days 
of his youth had been spent. Early in Octo- 
ber he set out from Richmond to fulfill a liter- 
ary engagement in New York, and to prepare 
for his marriage, which was to take place on 
the 17th of the month. Arriving in Baltimore, 
he found that he had missed the Philadelphia 
train which he expected to take, and would 
have to wait two or three hours for the next 
train. He went to a restaurant near the depot 
to get some refreshments. There he met some 
of his old West Point friends, who invited him 
to a champagne supper that night. He ac- 
cepted the invitation, and went. At first he re- 
fused to drink, but at last he was induced to 
take a glass of champagne. That set him off, 
and in a few hours he was madly drunk. In 
this state he wandered off from his friends, 
was robbed and beaten by ruffians, and left in- 
sensible in the street all night. The next morn- 
ing he was picked up and taken to the Wash- 
ington Hospital. He was delirious with brain 

182 



^bt poe Cult 



fever. He was well cared for by the physicians 
of the Hospital, but he was beyond the skill 
of doctors. He lingered two or three days, and 
died on Sunday, October 7, 1849. The above 
was told me by Mrs. Clemm. 

Washington Irving sweetly says of the 
grave: ''It buries every error, covers every 
defect, extinguishes every resentment. From 
its peaceful bosom springs none but fond re- 
grets and tender recpllections. Who can look 
down upon the grave even of an enemy, and 
feel not a compunctious throb that he should 
ever have warred with the poor handful of 
dust that lies mouldering before him !'' 

Let us, then, forget the errors of Edgar Poe, 
remembering the lines of Stoddard : 

"He lies in dust, and the stone is rolled 

Over the sepulchre dim and cold; 

He has cancelled all he has done or said, 

And gone to the dear and holy dead. 

Let us forget the path he trod, 

And leave him now to his Maker, God !" 



183 



Clje Poe Cult 



THE POE MONUMENT. 



For a quarter o£ a century the author of 
''The Raven'' has been sleeping in the quiet 
graveyard attached to Westminster church, in 
the city of Baltimore. Among the beautiful 
monuments which adorn the fair Monumental 
City, not even the humblest has been reared in 
honor of him whose genius the world delights 
to honor. Baltimore has commemorated the 
patriot, the soldier, the mechanic ; but her most 
gifted son has hitherto been neglected — as no 
stone has ever marked the hallowed spot where 
genius reposes. Strangers have come from 
distant lands to visit the grave of Poe as to a 
pilgrim's shrine. They anticipated no diffi- 
culty in finding the grave of so distinguished 
a poet ; they expected to be guided to the spot 
by a suitable monument, and to meet there 
other admirers of Poe, bending in respect and 
reverence, perchance plucking a flower, a leaf, 
a twig, from the well-kept grave. Great has 
been the astonishment of these distant travel- 
lers, when, after much inquiry and diligent 
search, they at last found the grave of Edgar 

184 




EDGAR ALLAN POE MONUMENT, BALTIMORE. 
(Unveiled Nov. 17, 1875.) 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



A. Poe — a wretched, forlorn, forsaken spot, 
in an obscure corner of an obscure churchyard. 
Rank weeds cover the neglected mound — but 
none of the violets and roses and pansies which 
the poet loved. 

Such for more than twenty-five years was 
the last resting place of Edgar A. Poe, until 
the 17th of November, 1875, when the monu- 
ment in honor of the poet was dedicated. In 
striking contrast with this interesting occasion 
was the scant ceremony, on the dreary Autumn 
afternoon, twenty-six years before, when the 
mortal remains of the author of the Raven 
were privately buried among his ancestors in 
Westminster churchyard. On the 8th of Octo- 
ber, 1849, ^ single carriage followed the poet's 
body to the grave. On the 17th of November, 
1875, the Poe monument was unveiled in the 
presence of an immense assemblage represent- 
ing the wealth and culture of Baltimore. The 
ceremonies began with the performance of the 
'Tilgrim's Chorus,'^ of Verdi, by the Phil- 
harmonic Society ; followed by a history of the 
movement which culminated in the erection of 
the monument. Upon the conclusion of this 
address, Miss Sara Sigourney Rice, professor 
of elocution of the Western Female High 
School of Baltimore, read the letters received 
from the poets and other distinguished persons 

185 



Cfte Poe Cult 



who were invited to be present at the unveihng. 
The orator of the occasion, Prof. Henry E. 
Shepherd, at that time the Superintendent of 
PubHc Instruction in Baltimore, then deHvered 
a scholarly address upon the Character and 
Literary Genius of Foe, in which he said that 
in him literary culture and artistic taste were 
combined with poetic genius, producing the 
richest and rarest results that any poet in the 
century had done, and, in those remarkable 
productions of his genius, the ''Raven'' and 
''Annabel Lee,'' he attained a graceful mastery 
over the subtle and delicate metrical forms, 
even those to whose successful production the 
spirit of the English tongue is not congenial. 
After alluding to the frequent tributes to Foe's 
genius which had appeared in leading British 
periodicals, the orator went on to say that this 
"lofty estimate of his powers is not confined 
to those lands in which the English language 
is the vernacular speech; it has extended into 
foreign climes, and aroused appreciative ad- 
miration where English literature is imper- 
fectly known and slightly regarded." 

Then followed some personal reminiscences 
of Foe by Mr. John H. B. Latrobe, a dis- 
tinguished lawyer of Baltimore. He said: 
About the year 1832 there was a newspaper in 
Baltimore called The Saturday Visitor. One 

186 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



of its efforts was to procure original tales, and 
to this end it offered on this occasion two 
prizes, one for the best story, and the other for 
the best short poem — $ioo for the first, and 
$50 for the last. The judges appointed by the 
editor of the Visitor were the late John P. 
Kennedy, Dr. James H. Miller, also deceased, 
and myself; and accordingly we met, one pleas- 
ant afternoon in October, 1833. As I hap- 
pened to be the youngest of the three, I was 
requested to open the packages of poetry and 
prose, respectively, and read the contents. 
Alongside of me was a basket to hold what 
w^e might reject. Most of the manuscripts 
were namby-pamby in the extreme, and the 
committee had about made up their minds that 
there was nothing to which they could award 
a prize, when I noticed a small quarto bound 
book that had, until then, accidentally escaped 
attention, possibly because so unlike externally 
the bundles of manuscripts it was to compete 
with. Opening it, an envelope with a motto 
corresponding with one in the book appeared, 
and we found that our prose examination was 
still incomplete. Instead of the common manu- 
script, the writing was in Roman characters — 
an imitation. As I read we all became deeply 
interested, and I was constantly interrupted 
by such exclamations as ''Capital, ''excellent,'" 

187 



Cl)e poc Cult 



''how odd/' and the Hke. There was genius 
in every Hne, there was no uncertain gram- 
mar, no feeble phraseology ; no ill-placed 
punctuation, no worn-out truisms, no strong 
thought elaborated into weakness. Logic and 
imagination were combined in rare consist- 
ency. When the reading was completed, there 
was a difference of choice ; but finally the com- 
mittee selected ''A Manuscript found in a Bot- 
tle." One of the series was called ''A Descent 
into the Maelstrom,'' and this was at one time 
preferred. There must have been six or eight 
tales in all. The statement in Dr. Griswold's 
life prefixed to the common edition of Poe's 
works, that ''it was unanimously decided by 
the committee that the prize should be given 
to the first of geniuses who had written legibly 
— not another manuscript was unfolded,'' is 
absolutely untrue. The selection Being made, 
and the $ioo prize awarded because of the un- 
questionable genius and great originality of the 
writer, we were at liberty to open the envelope 
that identified him, and there we found, in the 
note whose motto corresponded with that on 
the little volume, the name of Edgar A. Poe. 

Mr. Poe called at my office the following 
Monday to thank me, as one of the commit- 
tee, for the award in his favor. I asked him 
then if he wafe occupied with any literary labor. 

i88 



Ci)e Poe Cult 



He replied that he was engaged in a voyage 
to the moon ! and at once began to describe 
the journe}^ with so much animation that for 
all that I now remember, I may have fancied 
myself the companion of his aerial journey. 
When he had finished his description, he apolo- 
gized for his excitability, which he laughed at 
himself. Dr. Griswold's statement ''that Mr. 
Kennedy accompanied Poe to a clothing store 
and purchased for him a respectable suit, with 
a change of linen, and sent him to a bath" is 
a sheer fabrication. I never saw Poe again. 

At the close of Mr. Latrobe's address the 
assemblage withdrew from the hall and went 
to the churchyard, where the interesting cere- 
mony of unveiling the Monument took place. 
This was performed by Miss Sara S. Rice, 
who, from first to last, had taken the most 
active interest in the erection of the monu- 
ment. She was assisted by the ladies who 
took part in the first literary entertainment in 
aid of the Poe Monument Association, in the 
Autumn of 1865. As the drapery gracefully 
fell from the marble, the Philharmonic Society 
of Baltimore, composed of one hundred of the 
best singers in the city, chanted a dirge which 
had been composed for the occasion by Mrs. 
Eleanor A. Fullerton. 

The dirge was listened to in silence, and with 

189 



Ci)e Poe Cult 



bowed heads, by the immense assemblage. As 
the voices died away, Mrs. James A. Oates, 
who was then performing at Ford's Opera 
House, and in behalf of the joint companies 
of the theatres of Baltimore, placed a magnifi- 
cent crown on the top of the monument. 

The monument is made of the purest white 
marble from Maryland quarries. It stands 
upon a granite base about eight feet high, and 
is placed over the poet's grave in the most con- 
spicuous corner of the cemetery. The monu- 
ment is simple and chaste, having few orna- 
ments. It recalls in some respects the monu- 
ment to Shakespeare, recently erected at Vic- 
toria Park, Bath, England, though it is su- 
perior to this, however, in the simplicity of its 
design. It also bears a resemblance to the 
Wordsworth monument at Grasmere, Eng- 
land. It has on one side a finely executed me- 
dallion bust of the poet, taken from a photo- 
graph copy of an original daguerreotype. It 
is said to be an excellent likeness. Beneath the 
bust is inscribed the name, "Edgar Allan Poe/' 
On the opposite side is the follo\?ing inscrip- 
tion : 

Born January 19th, 1809. 

Died October 7th, 1849. 



190 



Clje Poe Cult 



PORTRAITS OF POE. 

One of Mrs. Whitman's most striking poems 
was inspired by a portrait of Edgar A. Poe, 
received many years after the death of the 
poet: 

Slowly I raised the purple folds concealing 
That face, magnetic as the morning's beam 

While slumbering memory thrilled at its revealing, 
Like Memnon waking from his marble dream. 

Again I saw the brow's translucent pallor. 
The dark hair floating o'er it like a plume; 

The sweet imperious mouth, whose haughty valor 
Defied all portents of impending doom. 

The eyes of her poet-lover made an indehble 
impression upon her mind and heart, and 
twenty-five years after their sad separation, in 
recalling the poetic beauty of his face, she thus 
described them : 

Eyes planet calm, with something in their vision 
That seemed not of earth's mortal mixture born ; 

Strange mythic faiths and fantasies Elysian, 
And far, sweet dreams of ''fairy lands forlorn." 

191 



CI)e poe Cult 



Unfathomable eyes that held the sorrow 
Of vanished ages in their shadowy deeps, 

Lit by that prescience of a heavenly, morrow 
Which in high hearts the immortal spirit keeps. 

Sweet mournful eyes, long closed upon earth's sorrow, 
Sleep restfully after life's fevered dream ! 

Sleep, wayward heart; till on some cool, bright 
morrow, 
Thy soul, refreshed, shall bathe in morning's beam. 

The picture that inspired these remarkable 
verses v^as taken at Providence, R. L, at the 
time of Poe's engagement to Mrs. Whitman. 
It represents the poet in the full maturity of 
his manly beauty, before his fine mobile mouth 
had become disfigured by the habitual sneer 
which so plainly marked his ''lonesome latter 
years.'' One of the last pictures of the author 
of the Raven, of which the vignette upon 
the title page of Mr. E. C. Stedman's dainty 
little work, ''Edgar Allan Poe,'' is a re- 
duced copy, was from a daguerreotype of the 
poet, owned by Dr. H. S. Cornwell, of New 
London, Conn., who thus describes it: "The 
aspect is one of mental misery, bordering 
on wildness, disdain of human sympathy, and 
scornful intellectual superiority. There is 
also in it, I think, dread of imminent calamity, 
coupled with despair and defiance, as of a 
hunted soul at bay." 

192 



Ci)e poe Cult 



Mr. Stedman, whose brochure on Poe, as 
revised and corrected from the Scrihner 
Monthly article, is one of the finest and most 
appreciative critiques on the life and genius of 
the poet that has ever been v^ritten, devotes 
considerable attention to his portraits, and thus 
characterizes the man from his early and later 
pictures : 

Even as we drive out of mind the popular 
conceptions of his nature, and look only at the 
portraits of him in the flesh, we needs must 
pause and contemplate, thoughtfully, and with 
renewed feeling, one of the marked ideal faces 
that seem — like those of Byron, De Musset, 
Heine — to fulfill all the traditions of genius, of 
picturesqueness, of literary and romantic 
effect. 

We see one they describe as slight but erect 
of figure, athletic and well molded, of middle 
height, but so proportioned as to seem every 
inch a man ; his forehead and temples large and 
not unlike those of Bonaparte; his hands fair 
as a woman's — in all, a graceful, well-dressed 
gentleman — one, even in the garb of poverty, 
''with gentleman written all over him.'' We 
see the handsome, intellectual face, the dark 
and clustering hair, the clear and sad eyes, 
large, lustrous, glowing with expression— the 
mouth, whose smile at least was sweet and 



193 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



winning. We imagine the soft, musical voice 
(a delicate thing in man or woman), the easy, 
quiet movement, the bearing that no failure 
could humble. And this man had not only the 
gift of beauty — but the passionate love of 
beauty — either of which may be as great a 
blessing or peril as can befall a human 
being stretched upon the rack of this tough 
world. 

But look at some daguerreotype taken 
shortly before his death, and it is like an in- 
auspicious mirror, that shows all too clearly 
the -^ravage made by a vexed spirit within, and 
loses the qualities which only a living artist 
could feel and capture. Here is a dramatic, 
defiant bearing, but with it the bitterness of 
scorn. The disdain of an habitual sneer has 
found an abode on the mouth, yet scarcely can 
hide the tremor of irresolution. In Bendann's 
likeness, indubitably faithful, we find those 
hardened lines of the chin and neck that are 
often visible in men who have gambled heavily, 
which Poe did not in his mature years, or who 
have lived loosely and slept ill. The face tells 
of battling, of conquering external enemies, 
of many a defeat when the man was at war 
with his meaner self. 

The ''Bandann'' likeness above alluded to, is 
said to be copied from the last daguerreotype 

194 



Cfje poc Cult 



taken in Richmond, just ten days before Poe's 
untimely death. A photograph of this daguer- 
reotype forms the frontispiece to the Memorial 
Volume of the ceremonial attending the unveil- 
ing of the Poe Monument in Baltimore, No- 
vember 17, 1875. Mrs. Whitman, in a letter 
to the present writer, dated Providence, July 2, 
1876, thus alludes to another copy of the same 
portrait : 

Harper's Weekly, in its account of the 
Memorial services, had a wood-cut taken from 
this portrait, whether from the original or 
some copy I cannot say, but it was the finest 
portrait of him, the handsomest and most life- 
like that I have ever seen. Do you remember 
it? I should like to see a fine engraving of 
that portrait as it is presented in Harper. It 
would be invaluable. The expression is en- 
tirely different from the copies of the same por- 
trait in Widdleton's. 

In another letter Mrs. Whitman says: 

The picture in the Memorial Volume is 
from Redfield's illustrated 8vo edition of the 
poems, but the proportions are changed: the 
chest seems narrower and more contracted; 
the neck is longer ; the shoulders more sloping, 
and the whole figure has a clerkly and clerical 
air very unlike the original. 

One of the earliest pictures of Poe was a 

195 



Cl)e Poc Cult 



miniature once owned by Duval, in Philadel- 
phia, from which w^as copied the lithograph 
published in the Saturday Museum in 1843, 
which may still be seen (in proof) in the 
Pennsylvania Historical Society Collection of 
lithographs. Next in order of time may be 
mentioned the engraving in Graham's Maga- 
zine in 1845, accompanying the now famous 
article on Poe by James Russell Lowell. One 
who knew the poet at this period of his life 
says: 

Everything about him distinguished him as 
a man of mark; his countenance, person, and 
gait w^ere alike characteristic. His features 
wxre regular and decidedly handsome. His 
complexion was clear and dark; the color of 
his fine eyes seemingly a dark gray, but on 
closer inspection they were seen to be of that 
neutral, violet tint which is so difficult to de- 
fine. His forehead was without exception the 
finest in proportion and expression that we 
have ever seen. The perceptive organs were 
not deficient, but seemed pressed out of the 
way by causality, comparison, and construct- 
iveness. Close to these rose the proud arches 
of ideality. 

Some who knew Poe personally say his fore- 
head retreated. This feature is brought out 
only in the Graham picture. In all the others 

196^ 



Clje poe Cult 



he is so posed as to give the effect of great 
fullness to the brows. Mrs. Whitman, who re- 
membered Poe as distinctly as any person who 
had seen him in life, said the engraved por- 
traits of the poet have very little individuality ; 
that prefixed to the volumes edited by Dr. 
Griswold suggests, at first view, something of 
the general contour of his face, but is utterly 
void of character and expression; it has no 
sub-surface. The original painting, now in 
possession of the New York Historical So- 
ciety, has the same cold, automatic look that 
makes the engraving so valueless as a portrait 
to those who remember the unmatched glory 
of his face, when roused from its habitually 
introverted and abstracted look by some 
favorite theme or profound emotion. Perhaps, 
from its peculiarly changeful and translucent 
character, any adequate transmission of its 
variable and subtle moods was impossible. By 
writers personally unacqauinted with Poe, this 
engraving has often been favorably noticed. 
Hannay, in a memoir prefixed to the first Lon- 
don edition of Poe's Poems, calls it an interest- 
ing and characteristic portrait: 

A fine, thoughtful face, with lineaments of 
delicacy, such as belong only to genius or high 
blood — the forehead grand and pale, the eye 
dark and gleaming with sensibility and soul— 

197 



Cfje poc Cult 



a face to inspire men with interest and 
curiosity. 

In the Winter of 1855-56, Mrs. Whitman 
was an occasional visitor at the house of AHce 
and Phoebe Gary, which formed a ''sort of 
fragrant and dehcious clovernook'' in the heart 
of New York. The home of the gifted sisters 
was at that time the favorite resort of poets, 
artists, and men of letters. In their little 
drawing room then hung the portrait of Poe 
by Osgood, now in the New York Historical 
Gallery (already mentioned). Mrs. Whitman 
relates that she heard one of the party say of 
the portrait that its aspect was that of a beau- 
tiful and desolate shrine from which the 
genius had departed, and that it recalled cer- 
tain lines to one of the antique marbles: 

Oh melancholy eyes ! 
Oh empty eyes, from which the soul has gone 

To see the far-off countries ! 

Near this luminous but impassive face, with 
its sad and soulless eyes, says Mrs. Whitman, 
was a portrait of Poe's unrelenting biog- 
raphist, Griswold. In a recess opposite hung 
a picture of the fascinating Mrs. Frances Sar- 
gent Osgood, whose genius both had so fer- 
vently admired, and for whose coveted praise 
and friendship both had been competitors. 
Looking at the beautiful portrait of this lady 

198 



Cfje poe Cult 



— the face so full of enthusiasm, and dreamy, 
tropical sunshine — remembering the eloquent 
words of her praise, as expressed in the prodi- 
gal and passionate exaggerations of her verse, 
one ceases to wonder at the rivalries and 
emnities which the grave itself could not can- 
cel or appease. 

Of the portrait prefixed to the illustrated 
poems, published by Redfield in 1859, N. P. 
Willis says: 

The reader who has the volume in his hand 
turns back musingly to look upon the features 
of the poet, in whom resided such inspiration. 
But, though well engraved and useful as re- 
calling his features to those who knew them, 
with the angel shining through, the picture is 
from a daguerreotype, and gives no idea of 
the beauty of Edgar Poe. The exquisitely 
chiselled features, the habitual but intellectual 
melancholy, the clear pallor of the complexion, 
and the calm eye like the molten stillness of a 
slumbering volcano, composed a countenance 
of which this portrait is but the skeleton. 
After reading the Raven, Ulalume, Lenore, 
and Annabel Lee, the luxuriast in poetry will 
better conceive what his face might have 
been. 

Nine lives of Poe have been published, each 
of which contains a portrait, more or less dif- 

199 



Cije poe Cult 



ferent, but all claiming to be the ''best" like- 
ness. Ingram's ambitious but egotistical 
Memoir contains a photographic copy of a 
daguerreotype belonging to Mrs. Estelle Anna 
Lewis. It is a very forbidden likeness, and 
must have been taken when 

Unmerciful Disaster 
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one 

burden bore — 
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden 
bore 

of Never — nevermore. 

We turn away with a shudder from this ''sor- 
row-laden'' face, wondering what had wrought 
the terrible change in him whose early beauty 
had won the highest admiration of both men 
and women. Was it his own hand that struck 
the fatal blow that destroyed at once his beauty 
and happiness? Was the change caused by 
retributions of conscience, which he had de- 
scribed with such awful fidelity in William 
Wilson, the Tell-Tale Heart, and The Man of 
the Crozvd? The rapid descent in crime as de- 
lineated in William Wilson reminded Mrs. 
Whitman of the subterranean staircase by 
which Vathek and Nouronihar reached the 
Hall of Eblis, where, as they descended, they 
felt their steps frightfully accelerated till they 
seemed falling from a precipice. 

200 



Clje Poe Cult 



In Gill's quixotic Memoir is a portrait copied 
from a daguerreotype taken from life, which 
the biographer says ''represents the poet in his 
youthful prime, and by one, a near friend of 
Poe, who has seen all his pictures known to be 
in existence, is pronounced the best likeness ex- 
tant/' The same portrait is in the Red Line 
edition of Poe's Poems. An idealized engrav- 
ing of the Osgood portrait accompanies the 
Life of Poe by the writer of this article. It re- 
calls the striking face of the poet to the few 
now living who knew him in his better days. 
The portrait in Mr. George E. Woodberry's 
Life of Poe, recently published, is from an 
original daguerreotype, from which the en- 
graving in the English edition of the complete 
works was taken. It is owned by Mr. Sted- 
man, and was a gift from Mr. Benjamin H. 
Ticknor. 

The likeness known as the ''J^^hn Thomp- 
son" daguerreotype has been reproduced life 
size in crayon, and has been pronounced the 
most satisfactory likeness of Poe. The two 
engravings made by Sartain, of Philadelphia, 
were very good in proof, but less successful 
in their completed state. In the rooms of the 
Long Island Historical Society, Brooklyn, 
is a curious portrait made from memory after 
Foe's death by Gabriel Harrison, author of the 

20 1 



Cfjc Idoc Cult 



Life of John Hozvard Payne. I have never 
seen it. but it has been warmly praised by some 
who have. 

When we remember the strange diversity of 
character displayed in the portraits of Edgar 
A. Poe. we are more and more inclined to be- 
lieve that 

Two natures in him strove 
Like day with night, his sunshine and his gloom. 



202 



Ci)C |3oc Cult 



THE POE MANIA. 

The irony of fate was never more strikingly 
displayed than in the case of Edgar A. Poe. 
A life of sorrow and suffering, a wTetched 
death, and a splendid posthumous fame — such 
was the malevolent destiny of America's great- 
est genius. The first editions of those ex- 
traordinary tales and marvelous poems, for 
which Poe received a beggarly compensation, 
are now fought for by wealthy collectors. In 
1827 the first edition of Poe's Poems was 
printed in Boston — printed, but not pubhshed, 
"for private reasons." I strongly suspect that 
''the private reasons'' why the first edition of 
Poe's Poems was not published was because the 
poet had not the money to pay for the print- 
ing. That little book of fortv' pages in the 
course of time became one of the rarest books 
in the world. As it is one of the curiosities of 
literature, it will be interesting to many readers 
to have its title page in full. I have copied it, 
as follows: 

^3 



Cfie poe Cult 



TAMERLANE, AND OTHER POEMS, 
By a Bostonian. 
Young heads are giddy, and young hearts are warm, 
And make mistakes for manhood to reform. 

Cowper. 
BOSTON : 
CALVIN F. S. F. THOMAS, PRINTER. 

1827. 

An autograph dealer, not renowned for pay- 
ing extravagant prices for what he buys, of- 
fered $500 for the original manuscript of the 
Raven. The pecuniary value placed upon it by 
the present owner is $10,000. 

One of the most enthusiastic admirers of 
Poe is John H. Ingram, of London. He spent 
several years and some money in collecting 
everything bearing upon his favorite subject 
— books, portraits, letters, magazine articles, 
etc. He had agents in several cities of the 
United States picking up material of every de- 
scription. He not only collected portraits of 
Poe, but of every person in any way associated 
with him. For instance, he wanted a portrait 
of Thomas Jefferson, not because he was the 
author of the Declaration of Independence and 
President of the United States, but because he 
was the Founder of the University of Vir- 
ginia, where Poe was educated; he wanted a 
likeness of Lafayette, not because he was a 
hero and a patriot, but because he was a friend 



204 



C6e Poe Cult 



of the poet's grandfather, Gen. Poe of the 
American Revolution ; he wanted a portrait of 
Margaret J. Preston, not because she was a 
gifted poetess, but because her husband was a 
schoolmate of Poe in Richmond; he wanted a 
portrait of George W. Childs, not because he 
was a famous American editor, but because 
he contributed largely toward the Poe monu- 
ment which was erected in Baltimore in No- 
vember, 1875; he wanted a portrait of John 
Tyler, not iDecause he was a President of the 
United States, but because his son, Robert 
Tyler, was one of Poe's early friends, and so 
on. These things show what a wonderful 
hold Poe has upon those afflicted with the Poe 
mania. The literature of the world scarcely 
offers anything to compare with it. Byron, 
Milton, Tennyson, Keats, Shelley, and other 
famous poets do not possess the same in- 
terest. 

A file of the Broadway Journal, of which 
Poe was the editor, will sell for a sum that 
would have supported the little family at Ford- 
ham in comfort for a year. It was in the cot- 
tage there that the poet's wife died in un- 
speakable wretchedness in the Winter of 1847, 
a calamity which, as the distracted husband 
wrote at the time, so overwhelmed him as to 
deprive him for several weeks of all power of 

205 



Cfte poe Cult 



thought or action. It was at this cottage that 
he wrote the Bells, Annabel Lee, and the won- 
derful prose poem, Eureka. 

Old magazines in which Poe's poems and 
tales originally appeared are eagerly sought 
for by Poe enthusiasts. I have known odd vol- 
umes of Southern Literary Messenger to bring 
as high as $5.00 a volume simply because Poe 
was once its editor. For the same reason 
Graham's Magazine brings an extravagant 
price; it would have little value except for 
Poe's association with it, although at one time 
it had a circulation of 40,000 a month — an 
enormous circulation sixty years ago. 

This extraordinary Poe mania began about 
thirty years ago, and has continued with ever- 
increasing violence ever since. It is confined, 
generally, to one sex, but extends to all classes 
and conditions of men — lawyers, editors, au- 
thors, professors, men of leisure, etc. The 
beginner never knows where he will end. In 
fact, he ends only with his money, or his life. 
The most patient wife must have her temper 
ruffled when she sees her house littered up with 
a miscellaneous collection of stuff, neither use- 
ful nor ornamental, purchased at an outlay 
which, if expended on furniture and decora- 
tions, would have made her home the House 
Beautiful. 

206 



Cfte Poe Cult 



THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF AMER- 
ICA'S FAMOUS POET. 

The semi-centennial of the death of Edgar 
Allan Poe possesses a melancholy interest for 
all who admire genius, and have a pity for the 
misfortunes that so often attend those who 
receive the fateful gift. No American poet, 
living or dead, has attracted more attention 
than the author of ''The Raven." Nine lives 
of him have been written, yet about no cele- 
brated poet of modern times has it been more 
difficult to obtain the real facts of both his life 
and death. According to some of his biog- 
raphers, he mingled among men as a be- 
wildered angel ; while others describe him as a 
prying fiend; or, an Ishmaelite, with his hands 
against everyone, and everyone's against him. 
The time and place of his birth were for many 
years uncertain; even now some of his biog- 
raphers still differ upon the subject. The 
place of his burial was at one time undecided, 
but that was definitely settled, in 1875, when 
his remains were discovered in Westminster 
churchyard, Baltimore, and a monument 
erected over his grave. 

Born in poverty, reared in luxury, and 

207 



Cl)c poe Cult 



thrown upon the world without a dollar, he 
lived and died a mystery. When Alexander 
the Great set out to conquer the world, he de- 
pended upon his sword. Edgar Poe, at the 
same age as the great Macedonian, was com- 
pelled to depend upon his pen for a living at a 
time when literature was not recognized as a 
profession in this country, and when the re- 
wards of even the highest literary talent wxrc 
beggarly in the extreme. 

The sad and romantic story of Poe's life has 
touched a sympathetic chord in the heart of 
the world. Never before or since has so much 
misery been united to so much genius. Be- 
lievers in heredity see in him a remarkable ex- 
ample of the truth of their opinion. His 
father, David Poe, Jr., a Baltimore law stu- 
dent, ran off with and married EHzabeth 
Arnold, an English actress. The husband 
adopted his wife's profession. After a w^an- 
dering life of toil and poverty, they both died 
within a few weeks of each other^ leaving 
three children. Edgar, the second son, was 
adopted by a Mr. Allan, a wealthy merchant 
of that city, who, after rearing him as the 
heir of a princely fortune, cut him off without 
a shilling. Homeless and penniless, Edgar 
wandered to Baltimore, where he found a home 
in the house of Mrs. Clemm, his father's sis- 

208 



Ciie Poe Cult 



ter. He married his lovely young cousin, Vir~ 
ginia Clemm, and the three formed a happy 
little household until the death of his child- 
wife in the midst of heartrending poverty, 
caused by the constant v^atching of the poet by 
the sick bed of the sufferer, deprived him of 
his only means of support — his pen. 

''Ah, broken is the golden bowl ! the spirit flown for- 
ever ! 

Let this bell toll! a saintly soul floats on the Stygian 
river ! 

Come, let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be 
sung! 

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so 
young — 

A dirge for her, the doubly dead, in that she died so 
young." 

In Lenore, in Annabel Lee, in Eulalie, and 
other poems, Poe embalmed the memory of his 
wife in immortal dirges. 

From the intolerable sorrow, caused by the 
loss of his fair and gentle wife, Poe was 
aroused to a temporary forgetfulness by the 
affectionate sympathy of Sarah Helen Whit- 
man, the most gifted poetess of New England. 
For a few brief weeks the}^ were engaged to 
be married. Why the engagement was broken 
has never been satisfactorily explained, but 
that Poe was not blameable in the matter is 
proved by the fact that Mrs. Whitman re- 

209 



Ci)c poe Cult 



mained his friend, and was his enthusiastic de- 
fender as long as she Hved. One of her last 
poems was to ''The Portrait of Poe/' in which 
she pays a beautiful tribute to his genius, and 
offers a touching proof of her devotion to his 
memory. 

In striking contrast were the first and last 
funerals of Edgar A. Poe. On that dreary 
Autumn day in 1849, when the most original 
of American poets was laid to rest among his 
ancestors, in Westminster churchyard, only one 
carriage followed the remains to the grave. 
The ceremony was scant, and the attendants 
were scantier, for eight persons only were pres- 
ent. Poe had died under a cloud — the hapless 
victim of ''unmerciful disaster" — his last hours 
were passed in the charity ward of a pubhc 
hospital; he was buried in a poplar coffin, 
stained to imitate walnut; it was a funeral 
such as a poor man, with few friends and no 
relatives, might have had. 

The account given of Poe's funeral, by Dr. 
John J. Moran, in his "Defense of Edgar A. 
Poe,'' is known to be incorrect and misleading. 
For instance, he gives the names of eight per- 
sons as present at the funeral, only two of 
whom were there. They were Rev. W. T. D. 
Clemm and Mr. Henry Herring, both of whom 

were relatives of Poe. The other persons who 

210 



Cfte Poe Cult 



attended the first burial were : Z. Collins Lee, 
afterwards judge of the Superior Court of 
Baltimore, who had been a classmate of Poe 
at the University of Virginia; Neilson Poe, 
afterwards chief judge of the Orphans' Court 
of Baltimore; Edmund Smith, a well-known 
school-teacher in Baltimore fifty years ago, 
and his wife, who was a first cousin of the 
poet; Dr. J. E. Snodgrass, the last editor of 
the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, the paper from 
which Poe received the $ioo prize offered for 
the best story. 

Another of Dr. Moran's misstatements is 
that the body of the poet was laid in state 
in the large room in the rotunda of the college 
building adjoining the hospital, that ''hundreds 
of his friends and acquaintances came to see 
him, that at least fifty ladies received locks 
of his hair.'' Poe had not a dozen friends in 
Baltimore, and if ''fifty ladies received locks 
of his hair," the poet's cranium must have been 
reduced to the appearance of a billiard ball. 
What became of those coveted "locks" from 
the head that conceived "The Raven," "The 
Gold Bug," "The Fall of the House of Usher," 
*^The Bells," and other marvelous tales and 
poems that have thrilled the world for fifty 
years? In these days, when a letter written 
by Poe readily brings $200 in the autograph 

211 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



market, a lock of the poet's hair would be 
worth a small fortune to its owner. The ''fifty 
ladies'' who received ''locks of Poe's hair" ex- 
isted only in Dr. Moran's imagination; he 
wished to throvv^ a little sympathy and senti- 
ment around the horrible tragedy of Poe's 
wretched death. The doctor's intention was 
good, but we are dealing with facts, not fiction 
— we are writing history, not romance. The 
picture, stripped of all romance and sentiment, 
is ghastly enough to suit the most melodra- 
matic play that ever stirred the lieges in the 
Bowery Theatre. 

The second burial of Edgar A. Poe took 
place on the 17th of November, 1875. The 
occasion was interesting and remarkable. The 
ceremonies took place in the large hall of the 
building then used as the Western Female 
High School, on the corner of Fayette and 
Greene Streets, adjoining Westminster church, 
in the graveyard of which the body of the 
poet had rested for twenty-six years without 
a stone to show that it was the grave of the 
most unique genius that America has given to 
the world. Among those seated upon the plat- 
form were: Walt Whitman, Dr. Nathan Cov- 
ington Brooks, in whose Baltimore Magazine 
some of Poe's early writings had appeared; 
Dr. J. E. Snodgrass, Prof. Joseph Clarke, who 

212 



Cfte Poe Cult 



was Poe's first teacher in Richmond; John T. 
Morris, the President of the Baltimore School 
Board ; Neilson Poe, Rev. Dr. John G. Morris, 
Vice President and afterwards President of 
the Maryland Historical Society; John T. 
Fordj Manager of Ford's Grand Opera House; 
Prof. William Elliot, Jr., President of the 
Baltimore City College; Henry E. Shepherd, 
Superintendent of the Public Schools of Balti- 
more. 

The exercises opened with the reading of 
the history of the movement for the erection 
of the monument, by Prof. Elliot; this was fol- 
lowed by the reading of the letters written by 
Tennyson, Swinburne, Longfellow, Holmes, 
Aldrich, Mrs. Margaret J. Preston, and Mrs. 
Sarah Helen Whitman; with poetic tributes 
from Paul H. Hayne and Stephane Mallarme, 
the French admirer of Poe. The best of the 
poetic tributes was written by William Winter, 
entitled, ''At Poe's Grave.'' Two stanzas from 
this touchingly sympathetic poem will give an 
idea of the tender grace of charity that in- 
spired the poet : 

Through many a year his fame has grown — 
Like midnight, vast ; like starHght, sweet — 

Till now his genius fills a throne, 
And Nations marvel at his feet. 



213 



Cl^e pae Cult 



One meed of justice long delayed, 

One crowning grace his virtues crave— ^ 

Ah, take, thou great and injured shade. 
The love that sanctifies the grave. 

Prof. Shepherd delivered a masterly address 
on the ''Genius and Literary Character of 
Poe/' at the conclusion of w^hich he con- 
gratulated the audience that "The Poetic cor- 
ner of our Westminster w^as at last rescued 
from the ungrateful neglect v^hich for a quar- 
ter of a century has constituted the just re- 
proach of our state and our metropolis. In 
the dedication of this monument to the memory 
of our poet, I recognize an omen of highest 
and noblest import, reaching far beyond the 
mere preservation of his fame by the 'dull, 
cold marble,' v^hich marks his long-neglected 
grave.'' Prof. Shepherd's address was listened 
to v^ith profound attention. Mr. John H. B. 
Latrobe, the last survivor of the committee of 
three gentlemen who awarded the prize to 
Poe for the best prose tale, then gave some 
personal reminiscences of the poet, after which 
the audience proceeded to Westminster church- 
yard, where the unveiling of the monument 
took place. During the ceremony of the un- 
veiling the Philharmonic Society chanted the 
dirge, "Sleep and Rest," which was adapted 
from Tennyson's "Sweet and Low," by Mrs. 

214 



Cle Pee Cult 



Eleanor Fullerton. Poe's mother had been an 
actress at the HolHday Street Theatre, Balti- 
more, and an interesting feature of the cere- 
monies upon the occasion of the last burial of 
our poet was the placing upon the monument 
of a beautiful wreath composed of camelias, 
lilies and tea roses, a tribute from the com- 
pany at Ford's Grand Opera House, gotten up 
through the active zeal of Mrs. Germon, the 
veteran actress. The funds for this monu- 
ment were largely raised through the efforts 
of Miss Sara S. Rice, of the Western Female 
High School, who also took a prominent part 
in the exercises. 

How striking the difference between the first 
and last burial of Edgar A. Poe ! The former 
was a funeral such as is given to the poor, the 
obscure, the friendless; the latter was a 
magnificent demonstration in honor of a poet 
who has bestowed more glory upon American 
literature than any other American author. 



215 



C!)e Poe Cult 



THE TRUTH ABOUT EDGAR A. POE. 

For a quarter of a century after Poe^s death, 
his enemies had the ear of the world. The 
weakness of human nature makes us Hsten 
with wilHng ears, and with more pleasure to 
blame than to praise. The lies that were told 
about Poe, the crimes that were recklessly im- 
puted to him, the dark stories that were laid at 
his door, the vile slanders that were repeated 
about him, with ''ghoulish glee,'' must have 
delighted ''the demons down under the sea.'' 
Poe was scarcely cold in his grave before 
Rufus W. Griswold published his malignant 
Memoir of the Poet, which, for twenty-five 
years, was accepted as the true story of the 
life and death of the author of "The Raven.'' 
With few exceptions, this mendacious memoir 
was followed in all subsequent biographies 
of Poe; and, naturally, for Griswold was sup- 
posed to be his trusted friend and chosen biog- 
rapher. The world did not know that Gris- 
wold, smarting under Poe's severe but well- 
deserved criticism of his "Poets and Poetry of 
America," had nursed his wrath and kept it 

216 



Cfte Poe Cult 



warm until the poet was dead and helpless, and 
then told his venomous story. Of this biog- 
raphy, one who knew Poe well has truly said, 
that, ''compared with its remorseless violations 
of confided trust, the unhallowed act of Tre- 
lawney in removing the pall from the feet of 
the dead Byron, seems guiltless/' 

It should be unnecessary, at this late day, 
when ten lives of Poe have been published, to 
point out Griswold's numerous misstatements, 
false charges, and insinuations, which were 
employed with the devilish ingenuity of lago, 
were it not much easier to start a falsehood 
than to stop it when it is once on its travels. 

Conversing with an accomplished woman, 
one evening, the name of Poe was mentioned, 
when she exclaimed: 

''What a strange contrast between the poet 
and his poetry! In his poetry he ascends to 
the sky; in his life he grovelled upon the earth. 
With a love of the beautiful that takes us back 
to the most glorious days of Greece, his de- 
graded life takes us back to the days of the 
drunken Helots. His poetry is all as sweet and 
pure as wild flowers, while his life was one 
wild debauch.'' 

This is given as a fair specimen of the opin- 
ion that still prevails among many intelligent 
persons of the poet. Too many persons who 

217 



Cfte poe Cult 



should know better still believe that Poe was 
a drunken vagabond, a literary Ishmael, a 
Pariah among poets. He was devoted to his 
young, beautiful, and accomplished wife, and 
her death, under distressing circumstances, 
unparalleled in literary annals, destroyed his 
health, and, for a time, drove reason from its 
imperial throne. I knew Mrs. Clemm, in the 
last years of her Hfe, and visited her with 
youthful enthusiasm, as the ''more than 
mother'' of the poet. She told me that ''Eddie" 
(as she always called him) was the most 
gentle, affectionate and devoted of husbands 
and sons — that he never went to bed at night 
without asking her blessing, and, if he had 
done anything to displease her, he would kneel 
at her feet, and humbly ask her forgiveness. 
This was the man who, Gr is wold said, "had 
no faith in man or woman.'' This was the 
man whom Griswold pronounced "naturally 
unamiable, irascible, envious, self-satisfied, 
self-confident." N. P. Willis, who knew Poe 
intimately, declared that he possessed the very 
qualities which his enemies denied to him — 
humility, belief in another's kindness, and 
capability of cordial and grateful friendship. 
Willis remembered him with respect and ad- 
miration, saying that his "modesty and un- 
affected humility as to his own deservings were 

218 



Cl)c Poe Cult 



a constant charm to his character/' Poe not 
only had the greatest ''faith in woman/' but 
women, the best, the most refined, the most 
cultivated women, had the greatest faith in 
him. Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, speaking 
of her own ''aflfectionate interest" in Poe, said: 
''No woman could know him personally with- 
out feeling the same interest — he was so 
gentle, generous, well-bred and refined. To a 
sensitive and delicately nurtured woman, there 
was a peculiar and irresistible charm in the 
chivalric, graceful and almost tender rever- 
ence with which he approached all women." 
"So far from being selfish and heartless," said 
Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, "his devotional 
fidelity to those he loved w^ould, by the world, 
be regarded as fanatical." He carried his 
chivalry to the fair sex so far that when 
women were the subjects of his criticism, his 
usually stern and severe opinions were greatly 
modified, and, as he himself said, "I cannot 
point an arrow against any woman." 

Poe lived and died a mystery to himself, to 
his friends, and to the world. We know that 
his life was a romance, his death a tragedy, 
that his fame is immortal, and that never be- 
fore nor since has so much misery been united 
to so much genius. He is the most interesting 
and picturesque personality in American lit- 



219 



Cfte poc Cult 



^ature. His strange and romantic life has 
^ always possessed a singular fascination for me, 
while his wonderful poems, and still more 
wonderful tales have been my literary passion 
since boyhood. When still in my teens, I was 
presented with the original four-volume edi- 
tion of Poe's works containing Griswold's in- 
famous memoir. I could not reconcile the dark 
story of the poet's life, as there told, with the 
purity, beauty, and refinement of his writings. 
I began a systematic study of his life; I put 
myself in communication with his surviving 
friends and relatives, personally and by letter ; 
I saw Professor Joseph H. Clarke, his first 
teacher in Richmond; I visited the University 
of Virginia, and secured the recollections of 
Mr. William Wertenbaker, the librarian, who 
was at the University when Poe was a stu- 
dent there; I corresponded with Col. J. T. L. 
Preston, a former schoolmate of the poet; I 
consulted my father-in-law, the late Gen. 
Lucius Bellinger Northrop, who was the last 
survivor of Poe's classmates at West Point ; I 
called on Mr. John H. B. Latrobe, one of the 
committee of gentlemen who awarded the prize 
to Poe for the best tale; I interviewed Judge 
Neilson Poe, the nearest surviving relative of 
the poet; I became acquainted with Mrs. 
Clemm, in the last years of her life; I sought 

220 



Cl)c Poe Cult 



out Gabriel H. Harrison, one of the last of 
Poe's friends; I went to Richmond, and had a 
talk with Mr. Valentine, the brother of 
Edward V. Valentine, the distinguished sculp- 
tor, who retained a vivid recollection of Poe's 
appearance when he delivered his lecture in 
Richmond on ''The Poetic Principle,'' on his 
last visit there in 1849; but the best of all my 
achievements in search of Poeana was a cor- 
respondence with Sarah Helen Whitman, 
Poe's most devoted friend. 

Professor Clarke, after over half a century, 
recalled with much interest and manifest pleas- 
ure Edgar Poe as one of his pupils at his school 
in Richmond. He said : ''The boy was a born 
poet, and, as a scholar, he was anxious to excel, 
and always acquitted himself well in his 
classes. He was remarkable for self-respect, 
without haughtiness. In his demeanor toward 
his playmates, he was strictly just and correct, 
which made him a general favorite. His pre- 
dominant passion seemed to me to be an en- 
thusiastic ardor in everything he undertook. 
Even in those early years, he displayed the 
germs of that wonderfully rich and splendid 
imagination which has placed him in the front 
rank of the purely imaginative poets of the 
world. While the other boys wrote mere me- 
chanical verses, Poe wrote genuine poetry, and 

221 



Ci)e poe Cult 



he wrote it not as a task, but con amove/' 
When Professor Clarke left Richmond in 1823, 
young Poe addressed to his beloved teacher a 
poem which was a remarkable production for 
a boy of fourteen. In after years, the Profes- 
sor was proud of his distinguished pupil, and 
referred, to his dying day, to the fact that Poe 
always called upon him when he visited Balti- 
more, to which city Mr. Clarke removed from 
Richmond. 

Colonel John T. L. Preston was one of Poe's 
schoolmates at Clarke's Academy, and fur- 
nished me with some interesting particulars 
of the future poet's school-days in Richmond: 
"'As a scholar, he was distinguished specially 
for Latin and French; in poetical composi- 
tion, he was facile princeps. He was the best 
boxer, the swiftest runner, and the most dar- 
ing swimmer at Clarke's school. Indeed, his 
swimming feats at the Great Falls of the James 
River were not surpassed by the more cele- 
brated feat of Byron in swimming from Sestos 
to Abydos. 

Griswold's most reckless and untruthful 
statement about Poe was that, ''in 1822 he 
entered the University of Virginia, where he 
led a very dissipated life, and was known as 
the wildest student of his class; but his un- 
usual opportunities, and the remarkable ease 

222 



Cfje poe Cult 



with which he mastered the most difficuh 
studies, kept him all the while in the first rank 
for scholarship, and he would have graduated 
with the highest honors, had not his gambling, 
intemperance, and other vices induced his ex- 
pulsion from the university/' So much for 
the Reverend Rufus Wilmot Griswold! This 
reverend defamer of the dead had given Poe's 
birth as having taken place in January, 1811, 
thus making him a gambler, drunkard, and 
debauche at the tender age of eleven years ! — 
surpassing in precocious vice the infamous 
Elagabalus. The fact is that Poe was born in 
1809, the annus mirabilis which produced Mrs. 
Browning, Tennyson, Gladstone, and other 
illustrious men. To ascertain the truth about 
Poe at the University of Virginia, I went 
there, and interviewed Mr. William Werten- 
baker, the librarian, who had been a classmate 
of the poet. He gave me the following facts : 
''Edgar Poe entered the University February 
14, 1C20, and remained until the 15th of De- 
cember of the same year. He entered the 
schools of ancient and modern languages, at- 
tending the lectures on Latin, Greek, French, 
Spanish, and Italian. I was myself a merhber 
of the last three classes, and can testify that 
he was regular in attendance, and a very suc- 
cessful student, having obtained distinction at 



€:bt Poe Cult 



the final examination in Latin and French. 
This would have entitled him to graduate in 
those two languages. I often saw Mr. Poe in 
the lecture room and in the library, but never 
in the slightest degree under the influence of 
intoxicating liquors. Among the professors 
he had the reputation of being a sober, quiet, 
and orderly young man. To them, and to the 
officers, his deportment was universally that of 
an intelligent and polished gentleman. The 
records of the university, of which I was then, 
and am still, the custodian, attest that at no 
time during the session did he fall under the 
censure of the Faculty. It will gratify the 
many admirers of Poe to know that his works 
are more in demand and more read than those 
of any other author, American or foreign, now 
in the library.'' 

General Lucius Bellinger Northrop, the last 
survivor of the classmates of Poe at West 
Point, told me that Edgar Poe, at West Point, 
was the wrong man in the wrong' place — al- 
though, from an intellectual point of view, he 
stood high there, as elsewhere : the records of 
the academy show that he was third in French, 
and seventeenth in mathematics in a class of 
eighty-seven. The severe studies and dull rou- 
tine duties were extremely distasteful to the 
young poet, and, at the end of six months, he 

224 



Cl^e pae Cult 



applied to his adopted father, Mr. Allan, for 
permission to leave the academy, which request 
was promptly refused. Poe then determined 
to find a way for himself, and began a syste- 
matic neglect of his duties, and a regular dis- 
obedience of orders. He was summoned be- 
fore a court-martial, charged with the ''gross 
neglect of all his duties, and of disobedience 
of orders.'' To these charges he pleaded 
guilty, and was at once sentenced to be dis- 
missed from the service of the United States. 
Poe was as much out of place at West Point 
as Achilles was when he was hid among the 
women in his youth. The rough sports and 
practical jokes of the cadets were utterly re- 
pugnant to the proud, sensitive, and dreamy 
young poet who already aspired to be the 
American Byron. 

In my search after Poe material, I called 
upon Mr. John H. B. Latrobe, who, as already 
mentioned, was one of the three gentlemen 
who awarded him the prize of $ioo for the 
best prose tale. He said that Poe showed his 
gratitude by calling on each of the gentlemen 
composing the committee, and thanking them 
for awarding the prize to him. 

Neilson Poe told me his cousin Edgar was 
one of the best-hearted men that ever lived. 
In society, his manner was sometimes cold and 

225 



Ci)e poe Cult 



his bearing proud and haughty, but at home, 
and among intimate friends, his kind and af- 
fectionate nature manifested itself in all its 
sweetness. The late Dr. Nathan Covington 
Brooks, of Baltimore, who was Poe's friend 
from first to last, said to me that ''Edgar Poe 
impressed him as a man inspired by noble and 
exalted sentiments." 

Count de Maistre declared that ''history for 
the last three hundred years has been a con- 
spiracy against the truth.'' With equal truth 
we might say that American literature for the 
last fifty years has been a conspiracy against 
the truth so far as Edgar A. Poe is concerned. 
The unimpeachable witnesses already pro- 
duced, and those that follow, should convince 
every unprejudiced mind that America's most 
illustrious poet possessed the very virtues 
which have been persistently denied to him. 

I wish to repeat here what I have said be- 
fore, namely, that Burns' Highland Mary, Pe- 
trarch's Laura, Byron's Mary Chaworth, 
Dante's Beatrice, Surrey's Fair Geraldine, 
Spenser's Rosalind, Carew's Celia, Waller's 
Sacharissa, Klopstock's Meta, Swift's Stella, 
Lemartine's Elvire, Campbell's Caroline, 
Wordsv/orth's Lucy, Allan Cunningham's 
Bonnie Jean, and other real and imaginary 
loves of the poets, who have been immortalized 

226 



Cle pne Cult 



in song, were not more worthy of poetical 
adoration than Sarah Helen Whitman, the 
friend and defender of Edgar A. Poe. Of 
this gifted lady it has been beautifully said: 
''She was ever sensitive to the slightest criti- 
cism of Poe's faults, walking softly backward 
and throwing over them the shielding mantle 
of her love. Heedless of the world's cold 
sneer, she seized her pen whenever she thought 
him treated with injustice, and defended his 
memory with all the warmth of a woman and 
a poet/' Some, of her most beautiful verses 
were inspired by the recollections of her poet- 
lover. Of these, one not known to the present 
generation of readers has always been a par- 
ticular favorite of mine. It is called: 

The Portrait of Poe. 

Slowly I raised the purple folds concealing 
That face, magnetic as the morning's beam; 

While slumbering memory thrilled at its revealing, 
Like Memnon waking from his marble dream. 

Again I saw the brow's translucent pallor, 
The dark hair floating o'er it like a plume ; 

The sweet imperious mouth, whose haughty valor 
Defied all portents of impending doom. 

Eyes planet calm, with something in their vision 
That seemed not of earth's mortal mixture born ; 

Strange mythic faiths and fantasies Elysian, 
And far, sweet dreams of ''fairy lands forlorn." 

22^ 



Cfte Poe Cult 



Unfathomable eyes that held the sorrow 
Of vanished ages in their shadowy deeps; 

Lit by that prescience of a heavenly morrow 
Which in high hearts the immortal spirit keeps. 

Oft has that pale poetic presence haunted 
My lonely musing at the twilight hour, 

Transforming the dull earth-life it enchanted, 
With marvel, and with mystery, and with power. 

Oft have I heard the sullen sea-wind moaning 
Its dirge-like requiems on the lonely shore, 

Or listened to the autumn woods intoning 
The wild sweet legend of the lost Lenore. 

Oft in some ashen evening of October, 

Have stood entranced beside a mouldering tomb, 
Hard by that visionary tarn of Auber, 

Where sleeps the shrouded form of Ulalume. 

Oft in chill, starlit nights have heard the chiming 
Of far-off mellow bells on the keen air, 

And felt their molten-golden music timing 
To the heart's pulses answering unaware. 

Sweet, mournful eyes, long closed upon earth's sorrow. 
Sleep restfully after life's fevered dream! 

Sleep, wayward heart! till on some cool, bright mor- 
row. 
Thy soul, refreshed, shall bathe in morning's beam. 

Though cloud and shadow rest upon thy story, 
And rude hands lift the drapery of thy pall. 

Time, as a birthright, shall restore thy glory, 
And Heaven rekindle all the stars that falL 

228 



Cl^e poe Cult 



The prophecy contained in the last verse of 
Mrs. Whitman's poem has been gloriously ful- 
filled. Time has not only ''restored'' his 
''glory," but placed him first among American 
poets. The strange, imaginary mythology used 
so effectively by Poe, is very happily intro- 
duced by Mrs. Whitman in the above poem. 
She was deeply imbued with the spirit of Poe's 
genius, and her pure, poetic soul responded 
with delicate, feminine grace to the inspiration 
of his divinely beautiful poetry. 

It was Mrs. Whitman, and other refined and 
cultured women, including Mrs. Frances Sar- 
gent Osgood, Mrs. Estella Anna Lewis, etc., 
who first began the Poe cult, which has since 
spread over the civilized world. While many 
ignorant or prejudiced men have attacked Poe, 
few, if any, self-respecting women have taken 
part in his defamation. It was this fact that 
first convinced me that there was good in the 
author of "The Raven." The defamers of 
the poet have invented a Frankenstein monster 
— a being devoid of all human affection, sym- 
pathy, and feeling — and labelled it Edgar Al- 
lan Poe. 

The most disgraceful story invented by Gris- 
wold about Poe was in regard to the breaking 
off his engagement with Mrs. Whitman. He 
said that Poe, washing to break the engage- 

229 



Cf)e poe Cult 



ment, went to her house in a state of intoxica- 
tion, and behaved so outrageously that the 
pohce had to be called in to expel the drunken 
intruder. This scandalous story was believed, 
and did more to injure Poe's character than 
any of the many lies that have been invented 
about him. Mrs. Whitman emphatically denied 
Griswold's story: ''No such scene as that de- 
scribed by Dr. Griswold ever transpired in my 
presence. No one, certainly no woman, who 
had the slightest acquaintance with Edgar Poe 
could have credited the story for an instant. 
He was essentially, and instinctively a gentle- 
man, utterly incapable, even in moments of ex- 
citement and delirium, of such an outras^e as 
Dr. Griswold has ascribed to him. . . . 
During one of his visits in the autumn of 1848, 
I once saw him after one of those nights of 
wild excitement, before reason had fully re- 
gained its throne. Yet even then, in those 
frenzied moments, when the door of the mind's 
'Haunted Palace' was left all unguarded, his 
words were the words of a princely intellect 
overwrought, and of a heart only too sensi- 
tive and too finely strung. I repeat that no 
one acquainted with Edgar Poe could have 
.given Dr. Griswold's anecdote a moment's 
credence." 

A man is known by his enemies as well as by 

230 



C!)e poe Cult 



his friends. Who were Poe's enemies? It is 
not necessary to mention any others, as it 
would only serve to keep alive their ignoble 
names ; they were men whose malignancy was 
equalled by their mendacity. He has out- 
lived their worst enmity, and while they have 
disappeared in a sea of oblivion, he has landed 
safely on the shore of immortality. While 
Poe's enemies have in the end injured them- 
selves, his friends have builded better than 
they knew, and their names shall live with his 
in American literature. Perhaps the time 
will come when N. P. Willis — the once popular 
poet and magazinist — shall be known only as 
Poe's generous friend and defender, when the 
literary jackals were rending his defenceless 
remains. The name of George R. Graham 
should long since have passed av/ay but for the 
fact that Poe was the editor of Graham's 
Magazine, whose publisher wrote a splendid 
defence of the poet, in which he denounced 
Grisw^old's Memoir as ''an immortal infamy — 
the fancy sketch of a perverted, jaundiced 
vision." Such a ''devilish" piece of work 
should not have accompanied Poe's writings, 
being, said Graham, "the death's-head over 
the entrance to the garden of beauty, a horror 
that clings to the brow of the morning, whis- 
pering of murder." 

231 



Cfte poe Cult 



When the Poe monument was unveiled in 
Baltimore, on the 17th of November, 1875, 
many of the American poets were invited to 
the ceremonial, but, excepting Walt Whitman, 
they sent ''regrets/^ James Russell Lowell 
wrote : ''I need not assure you that I sympa- 
thize very heartily with the sentiment which 
led to the erection of the monument/'' Oliver 
Wendell Holmes expressed himself more at 
length, and more enthusiastically, as follows: 
''No one, surely, needs a monument less than 
the poet. 

His monument shall be his gentle verse, 

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er read. 

And tongues to be his being shall rehearse, 
When all the breathers of this world are dead. 

Yet we would not leave him without a stone 
to mark the spot where the hands 'that waked 
to ecstasy the living lyre' were laid in the dust. 
He that can confer an immortality which out- 
lasts bronze and granite deserves this poor 
tribute, not for his sake so much as ours. The 
hearts of all who reverence the inspiration of 
genius, who can look tenderly upon the in- 
firmities too often attending it, who can feel 
for its misfortunes, will sympathize with you 
as you gather around the resting place of all 
that was mortal of Edgar Allan Poe, and raise 
the stone inscribed with one of the few names 

232 



Cije poe Cult 



which will outlive the graven record meant to 
perpetuate its remembrance/' Sarah Helen 
Whitman, Poe's gifted and devoted friend, 
whose beautiful little volume, ''Edgar Poe and 
his Critics/' was one of the first as it was the 
best defence of the poet from the malicious 
aspersions of Griswold, sent a very feeling 
note, in which she said: '1 need not assure 
you that the generous efforts of the association 
in whose behalf you write, have called forth 
my warmest sympathy and most grateful ap- 
preciation/' Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote: 
''Your desire to honor the genius of Edgar A. 
Poe is in the heart of every man of letters, 
though perhaps no American author stands 
so little in need of a monument as the author 
of 'The Raven/ His imperishable fame is in 
all lands/' One of the most eloquent tributes 
came from S. D. Lewis, the husband of Estelle 
Anna Lewis, who was one of Poe's most cher- 
ished friends. His interesting letter is too long 
to be quoted entire, but the following para- 
graph speaks for itself: "Edgar Poe was 
one of the most affectionate, kind-hearted men 
I ever knew. I never witnessed so much ten- 
der affection and devoted love as existed in 
that family of three persons. I have spent 
several weeks in the closest intimacy with him, 
and I never saw him drink a drop of liquor, or 

233 



Cfte Poe Cult 



beer, in my life. He was always in my pres- 
ence the polished gentleman, the profound 
scholar, the true critic, the inspired oracular 
poet — dreamy and spiritual, lofty, but sad/' 
Longfellow, who was asked to suggest an ap- 
propriate inscription for the monument, wrote 
that ''the only lines of Mr. Poe that I now re- 
call as in any way appropriate to the purpose 
you mention are from a poem entitled 'For An- 
nie/ They are, 

'The fever called living 
Is conquered at last.' " 

From across the sea came tributes from 
Tennyson, Swinburne, Richard H. Home, and 
Mallarme, the French poet. Tennyson's note 
was brief, saying simply: "I have long been 
acquainted with Poe's works, and am an ad- 
mirer of them.'' A poet whose verses brought 
five pounds a line, could not afford to spend 
many lines on the subject of a monument to a 
brother-poet although that poet had been one 
of the first to recognize the other's genius, and 
before his own countrymen had begun to ap- 
preciate him had pronounced him "the noblest 
poet that ever lived." Swinburne, full of the 
glowing enthusiasm of youth, paid a noble 
tribute to Poe : ''The genius of Edgar Poe has 
won, on this side of the Atlantic, such wide 

234 



C!)e poe Cult 



and warm recognition that the sympathy which 
I cannot hope fitly or fully to express in ade- 
quate words, is undoubtedly shared at this mo- 
ment by hundreds, not in England only but 
France as well. ... It is not for me to 
offer any tribute here to the fame of your great 
countryman, or dilate, with superfluous and 
intrusive admiration, on the special quality of 
his strong and delicate genius — so sure of aim, 
and faultless of touch, in all the finer and 
better part of the work he has left us. Widely 
as the fame of Poe has already spread, and 
deeply as it is already rooted in Europe, it is 
even now growing wider and striking deeper 
as time advances, the surest presage that time, 
the eternal enemy of small and shallow repu- 
tations, will prove, in this case also, the con- 
stant and trusty friend and keeper of a true 
poet's full-grown fame.'' Mallarme, with the 
grace of a true Frenchman, placed a poem on 

The Tomb of Edgar Poe. 

Even as eternity his soul reclaimed, 

The poet's song ascended in a strain 
So pure, the astonished age that had defamed, 

Saw death transformed in that divine refrain.* 

While writhing coils of hydra-headed wrong, 

Listening, and wondering at that heavenly song, 

Deemed they had drank of some foul mixture brewed 
In Circe's maddening cup, with sorcery imbued. 
^Annabel Lee. 



Cfte Poe Cult 



Alas ! if from an alien to his clime, 

No bas-relief may grace that front sublime. 

Stern block, in some obscure disaster hurled 
From the rent heart of a primeval world. 

Through storied centuries thou shalt proudly stand 

In the memorial city of his land, 
A silent monitor, austere and gray. 

To warn the clamorous brood of harpies from their 
prey. 

This poem was translated by Sarah Helen 
Whitman from the original copy which the 
French poet sent to her. Mrs. Whitman was 
good enough to furnish the present writer with 
a copy of her translation. 

Of all the tributes to Poe, prose or poetry, 
inspired by the unveiling of the monument, 
the poem by William Winter was by far the 
most beautiful. 

At Poe's Grave. 

Cold is the paean honor sings. 

And chill is glory's icy breath, 
And pale the garland memory brings 

To grace the iron doors of death. 

Fame's echoing thunders, long and loud, 
The pomp of pride that decks the pall, 

The plaudits of the vacant crowd — 
One word of love is worth them all. 

236 



Cfte poe Cult 



With dews of grief our eyes are dim ; 

Ah, let the tear of sorrow start, 
And honor, in ourselves and him, 

The great and tender human heart ! 

Through many a night of want and woe 
His frenzied spirit Vv^andered wild — 

Till kind disaster laid him low, 
And Heaven reclaimed its wayward child. 

Through many a year his fame has grown, — 
Like midnight, vast, like starlight sweet. 

Till now his genius fills a throne, 
And nations marvel at his feet. 

One meed of justice long delayed, 

One crowning grace his virtues crave : — 

Ah, take, thou great and injured shade, 
The love that sanctifies the grave ! 

God's mercy guard in peaceful sleep, 

The sacred dust that slumbers here : 
. And, while around this tomb we weep, 
God bless, for us, the mourner's tear ! 

And may his spirit hovering nigh. 

Pierce the dense cloud of darkness through. 

And know, with fame that cannot die. 
He has the world's aflFection, too ! 

The greatest critics of England and France 
have pronounced Poe the most consummate 
literary artist of the nineteenth century, the 
greatest critic of his age, and one of the most 

237 



Cl)e Poe Cult 



remarkable geniuses of all time. Swinburne, 
the master-spirit of the new school of English 
poetry, places Poe first among the American 
poets. Tennyson's admiration of the poet who 
was the first to recognize his own youthful 
genius has been already mentioned. The im- 
pression made upon Mrs. Brow^ning by ''The 
Raven'' is familiar to all readers. 

The impetus given to the fame of Poe by the 
erection of the monument to his memory in his 
own city of Baltimore attracted the attention 
of an Englishman who w^as otherwise un- 
known. This obscure individual claimed to 
have ''discovered" Edgar A. Poe, and to have 
introduced that poet to his countrymen and 
ours. This claim, preposterous as it may seem 
now, when the name and fame of Poe has gone 
abroad into all civilized lands, was not abso- 
lutely without foundation a quarter of a cen- 
tury ago. Poe's fame, which rose high after 
the publication of "The Raven" in 1845, ^^^k 
low after his wretched death in 1849. When 
he could no longer wield his powerful pen, his 
name and fame were assailed by a crowd of 
writers whose literary pretensions he had ex- 
posed with merciless severity. It was a case 
of asses kicking at a dead lion. These men 
and their friends had access to the periodicals 
of the time, and they painted Poe in such dark 

238 



Cl)c poe Cult 



colors that his fame was obscured, and his 
name covered with obloquy. Some of these 
literary jackals are still alive, and they have 
lived to see the fame of Poe cover the world, 
having burst in triumphant splendor through 
the dark clouds with which they had hoped to 
cover it forever. 

In 1869, a copy of Poe's Poems, New York, 
183 1, in the original boards, was knocked down 
at auction for $1. In 1902, a copy of the same 
edition brought $360 under the hammer. For 
''The Raven," one of the most remarkable 
poems in all literature, Poe was paid $10. For 
the original manuscript of the same poem the 
present fortunate owner asks $10,000. Such 
is fame! I can myself remember when the 
poet's grave was unknown — the place uncer- 
tain — the very churchyard a matter of doubt 
and dispute. 

Edgar Poe fought a desperate battle against 
a pitiless fate, and fell in the midst of the 
struggle, wounded, defeated, and destroyed. 
He never earned a dollar except by his pen, and 
he was miserably paid for his elegant and 
scholarly work. As the editor of the leading 
American magazine, his salary was only $10 
a week, the pay of many boys of seventeen, as 
shorthand writers, at the present day. His 
life of sadness and suffering, of sorrow and 

239 



Cfte poe Cult 



song, was brought to a sudden close, when a 
brighter future seemed to be opening for him 
whom 

''Unmerciful disaster 
Had followed fast, and followed faster, 
Till his songs one burden bore 

Of 'never — nevermore/ *' 



240 



Clie poe Cult 



EDGAR ALLAN POE IN SOCIETY. 

Although more than a dozen lives of Edgar 
Allan Poe have been published, as well as in- 
numerable magazine and newspaper articles, 
very little has been said of one of the most 
charming and interesting phases of his life. 
I refer to the subject of this article — Poe in 
society. Sixty-five years ago, fashionable 
American society was not frequented by poets 
any more than it is at present, but Poe was a 
welcome guest in the most cultured circles 
which New York could then boast. After the 
publication of ''The Raven,'' in the American 
Review, in February, 1845, Pc>e became, not 
only the talk of the town, but the talk of the 
nation. His presence was much sought in the 
best society of the metropolis, where he was 
the object of universal attention, as Lord 
Byron had been in the most exclusive London 
society after the publication of Childe Harold's 
Pilgrimage. 

It is admitted, even by Poe's worst enemies, 
that he possessed all the qualifications that 
make a man shine in society. His manners 

241 



C!)e poe Cult 



were graceful and refined, his voice was low, 
musical, and exquisitely modulated, his eyes 
were large, dark, luminous, and wonderfully 
expressive, and there was about him that air 
of unmistakable distinction, which ordinary 
men cannot assume, and which few men ever 
have. Friends and foes agree as to the singu- 
lar fascination of Poe's conversation. It was 
my privilege to receive many letters from Mrs. 
Sarah Helen Whitman in the last years of her 
life. During her brief engagement to the poet 
she had the best opportunity to form an opinion 
of his conversational powers. She said she had 
heard Walter Savage Landor, who was pro- 
nounced the best talker in England; had lis- 
tened to George William Curtis talk of the 
gardens of Damascus till the air seemed pur- 
pled and perfumed with its roses; had heard 
the Autocrat's trenchant and vivid talk, had 
heard the racy talk of Dr. O. A. Brownson in 
the old days of his freedom and power; had 
listened to the brilliant and exhaustless col- 
loquial resources of John Neal and Margaret 
Fuller, and the serene wisdom of Alcott; but, 
unlike the conversational power of any of these 
was the earnest, opulent, unpremeditated 
speech of Edgar Allan Poe. The charm of his 
conversation was in its genuineness — its won- 
derful directness and sincerity. What added 

242 



Ci)e poe Cult 



to the charm of his presence in society was his 
simple, natural, unconventional courtesy and 
the perfectly sincere grace of his manner. 
Mrs. Whitman said that his proud reserve, his 
profound melancholy, and his entire unworldli- 
ness added to the fascination of his personal 
presence in society. 

Poe, unlike his distinguished contemporary, 
Hawthorne, really enjoyed society, and in 
whatever city he lived he was a favorite in the 
most cultivated circles. In his boyhood he was 
early introduced to the most exclusive society 
of Virginia's capital. When just emerging 
from obscurity he made the acquaintance of 
John P. Kennedy, the Baltimore author, whose 
novels, Horseshoe Robinson, Swallow Barn 
and so forth, were very popular in the first 
half of the nineteenth century. Mr. Kennedy 
was a lawyer as well as a writer, and was a 
member of Congress and Secretary of the 
Navy under the administration of President 
Fillmore. His social position was the best in 
Baltimore at the time when the society of the 
Monumental City was the most exclusive in 
America. It was at that time N. P. Willis pro- 
nounced Baltimore ''The Social Athens of 
America." Mr. Kennedy invited Poe to his 
table, gave him a horse to ride, and did every- 
thing, as the poet always gratefully remem- 

243 



Cfte poe Cult 



bered, to raise him from the depths of despair. 
There are few persons now Uving who knew 
Poe, but when I first became interested in the 
poet, I had the good fortune to meet several 
who were acquainted with him at the most in- 
teresting period of his Hfe. The first of these 
was his aunt and mother-in-law — ''more than 
mother" he said she was to him — Mrs. Maria 
Clemm. I visited her at the Church Home in 
Baltimore, where she spent the last years of 
her life, and where she died on February i6, 
1 87 1, it being the same building where Poe 
died on October 7, 1849. Mrs. Clemm never 
tired of talking about her ''darling Eddie," as 
she always called the poet. She was fond of 
speaking of his beautiful manners, of his ex- 
quisite taste in dress, and above all things, she 
loved to tell of the many ladies who admired 
him. Their friendship was the chief comfort 
and solace of a life of sorrow, suffering and 
song. Poe was a worshipper of beauty, and 
of all beauty, he thought a beautiful woman 
was the supremest. His sentimental feeling 
for woman was the delicate, poetical Greek 
worship of an ideal beauty, so exquisitely per- 
sonified by Nausica in the Odyssey. Proud, 
solitary, and ambitious, he found in his female 
friends the sympathy which his mind and heart 
longed for. 

244 



Cfje poe Cult 



In the winter of 1845-46, Poe was the most 
distinguished visitor in the circles that gath- 
ered at the houses of the Honorable John R. 
Bartlett, Dr. Dewey, Miss Anne C. Lynch, 
afterward Mrs. Botta, and others who held 
weekly receptions of the best intellectual so- 
ciety of New York. Mrs. Whitman, in speak- 
ing of Poe's social prestige, relates an anecdote 
showing his habitual courtesy and good nature, 
which was noticeable to all who best knew him 
in domestic and social life. The incident oc- 
curred at one of the soirees above mentioned. 
A lady who prided herself on her knowledge of 
languages, ancient and modern, wished to ex- 
pose the ignorance of a pretender to classical 
knowledge, and proposed inviting him to trans- 
late a difficult passage in a Greek author, of 
which language he was profoundly ignorant, 
although in his writings he was in the habit of 
sprinkling Greek quotations very profusely. 
Poe was present upon the occasion, and when 
he heard of the lady's malicious intention, he 
remonstrated with her so earnestly that she 
was induced to forego the embarrassing test. 

Another evening Poe engaged in an intel- 
lectual controversy with the aggressive and 
self-opinionated Margaret Fuller. This lady, 
in her usual ''lofty and autocratic style," was 
annihilating a young author with merciless 

245 



Clje poe Cult 



scorn. Poe came to the rescue of the van- 
quished author, and in a few sharp, trenchant 
remarks destroyed all the effect of the learned 
lady's eloquence, and completely discomfited 
her. This was accomplished by Poe in the 
most polished manner. Some one present 
whispered, ''The Raven has perched upon the 
casque of Pallas, and pulled all of her feathers 
out of her cap.'' 

Sometimes, but not often, his child-wife, 
Virginia, accompanied her husband to these 
weekly assemblages. She took little or no part 
in the evening's conversation, but her pride in 
the poet's brilliant social success illuminated 
her sweet, girlish face. Mrs. Clemm told me 
that Virginia, Eddie, and herself formed an 
ideal family, and that the poet and his young 
wife were perfectly devoted to each other. In 
spite of this, it has been cruelly and recklessly 
asserted that Poe neglected his lovely wife and 
caused her early death. A shallow English 
writer, Gilfillan, even went so far as to say that 
Poe caused the death of his wife that he might 
have a fitting theme for ''The Raven." Mrs. 
Whitman, commenting upon this horrible and 
wicked assertion, sarcastically says that a 
serious objection to this ingenious theory may 
perhaps be found in the "refractory fact" that 
the poem was published more than a year be- 

246 



Cfte poe Cult 



fore the event which it is assumed it was in- 
tended to commemorate. 

Another of Poe's friends, Mrs. E. Oakes- 
Smith, who met him during this time of his 
greatest social success, at the houses mentioned 
above, says his manners at these reunions were 
pleasing and refined, and his style and scope 
of conversation that of a gentleman and 
scholar; that he delighted in the society of 
superior women, and had an exquisite percep- 
tion of all the graces of manner and shades of 
expression; and that he was an admiring lis- 
tener and an unobtrusive observer. 

So much abuse has been heaped on Poe's 
head by ignorant or malicious persons that it 
is not only a pleasure biit a duty to let the 
world know how he was regarded by those who 
had the best opportunity of seeing him. There 
was only one woman in all his social experience 
who disliked him, and she disliked him because 
he, very naturally, resented her attempt to 
destroy his friendship with Mrs. Frances Sar- 
gent Osgood, who was one of the loveliest and 
most accomplished women of her time, and the 
object of the poet's enthusiastic admiration. 
In her society he found a never-failing nepen- 
the for his sorrows and troubles. The poet and 
poetess were congenial spirits, and celebrated 

247 



Clje poc Cult 



their devoted friendship in Hnes worthy of the 
most exalted affection. 

Mrs. Osgood addressed the following lines 
to Poe: 

I cannot tell the ivorld how thrills my heart 
To every touch that flies thy lyre along; 

How the wild Nature and the wondrous Art 
Blend into Beauty in thy passionate song — 

But this / know — in thine enchanted slumbers, 
Heaven's poet, Israfel — with minstrel fire — 
Taught the music of his own sweet numbers, 
And tuned — to chord with his — thy glorious lyre ! 

These verses inspired the following delicate 
response : 

To F ^s S. O ^D. 

Thou wouldst be loved ? — ^then let thy heart 

From its present pathway part not, 
Bring everything which now thou art, 
Be nothing which thou art not. 

So with the world thy gentle ways, 
Thy grace — thy more than beauty — 

Shall be an endless theme of praise, 
And love — a simple duty. 

Poe possessed that best of all social qualities 
— he was a good listener. When he took his 
pen in hand he was sometimes fierce and ag- 
gressive, but in society he was conspicuous for 
his quiet dignity, his unobtrusive manner, his 

248 



Clie poe Cult 



elegant reserve. He was more impressive and 
infinitely more agreeable than the tiresome, 
loquacious, so-called good talkers who often 
eclipse the gaiety of drawing rooms, and make 
listeners long for a ''few brilliant flashes of 
silence/' 

Poe was extremely fortunate in the ''lone- 
some latter years'' which followed the death of 
his wife to be admitted to the intimate so- 
ciety of Mrs. Annie L. Richmond, of Lowell, 
Massachusetts. It was this lady to whom the 
poet addressed his well-known poem, "For An- 
nie/' beginning: 

Thank Heaven ! the crisis, 

The danger, is past, 
And the lingering illness 

Is over at last, 
And the fever called "Living" 

Is conquered at last. 

At Mrs. Richmond's house he met the best 
society of Lowell, and a gentleman, Mr. Hey- 
wood, who was a member of the family, spoke 
with great enthusiasm of the poet's demeanor 
and the grace of his conversation. "I have 
never seen it equalled," he said. A lady who 
was present at Mrs. Richmond's one evening 
when Poe was there differed from the poet 
upon some subject that was under discussion 

249 



C!)e poe Cult 



and expressed her opinions very strongly. He 
listened to her objection with the most perfect 
deference, and replied to her with the utmost 
politeness. His conversational tone was low 
but distinct; he never showed the least excite- 
ment even when discussing the most animated 
subject. 

It is the consensus of all who met Poe in so- 
ciety that while he was gentle and refined and 
seldom attacked any person's opinion, and 
maintained his own with modest confidence, he 
took every opportunity to defend any person 
who was attacked, especially when such person 
was dead or absent, protecting him or her with 
the tender grace of charity — that charity which 
has so seldom been exercised in his behalf, 
either during life or since his early death. 

On rare occasions Poe was persuaded to 
recite "The Raven'' when attending social 
gatherings in New York, especially when his 
wife added her request to the entreaties of his 
host or hostess. It was the opinion of those 
who heard him that it was a thrilling, an en- 
thralling, an overpowering exhibition of fer- 
vid frenzy and mental exaltation. Once heard 
it was never forgotten. 

In the last months of the last year of Poe's 
unhappy life, a gleam of light like that which 
cheered Sinbad in the Cave of Death, bright- 

250 



Cije Poe Cult 



ened the poef s gloomy existence. This was 
his return to his early home in Richmond, re- 
viving dead memories, and resuming his place 
in that fine old Virginia society which threw 
open its hospitable doors to welcome back its 
most gifted son. But it was the last flicker of 
life's candle, soon to be extinguished forever 
by the mournful tragedy of his mysterious 
death in Baltimore on that fatal autumn morn- 
ing of October 7, 1849. 



251 



Cle poc Cult 



RECOLLECTIONS OF EDGAR A. POE. 
By the Witnesses of his Life. 

Edgar Poe Hved and died a mystery to the 
world, and, although more than a half century 
has elapsed since his death, to many persons 
he remains a mystery still. 

The intention of the present article is to 
show Poe in a brighter and lovelier light — to 
see him as he appeared to the witnesses of his 
life. During the many years that I have been 
devoted to the investigation of Poe's life, I 
have made the acquaintance of several persons 
who were more or less associated with him 
from his childhood until his death. They were 
men and women who spoke of their own 
knowledge of the poet, and they were, there- 
fore, the most competent witnesses to testify 
to the truth concerning him. 

I was personally acquainted with a gentle- 
man who knew little Edgar when a boy — knew 
him intimately — who saw him every day. This 
was Professor Joseph H. Clarke, of Trinity 
College, Dublin, who was the Principal of an 
English and classical school in Richmond from 
i8i8 to 1823. [His recollections of Poe will 
be found elsewhere in this book.] 

252 



C^e poe Cult 



Among Poe's fellow cadets at West Point 
was Lucius Bellinger Northrop, of South 
Carolina, afterward the confidential friend of 
Jeiferson Davis and Commissary General of 
the Confederate Army, and one of the last 
survivors of Poe's classmates at West Point. 
Young Northrop was two years Poe's junior, 
but, even at that early day, he manifested that 
firm and determined character which distin- 
guished him through life, and made him fol- 
low what he believed to be the right, although 
on one memorable instance it caused a tem- 
porary break in his lifelong friendship with 
Jefferson Davis. 

I met General Northrop long after he had 
retired from public life, and was spending his 
last years on his farm amid the grand old Blue 
Ridge Mountains, near Charlottesville, Va. I 
was a guest at his house, and ascertaining that 
he had been at V/est Point with Poe, I lost no 
time in interviewing him on the subject. His 
recollection was that Poe was entirely out of 
place at West Point — that the routine of mili- 
tary duties was utterly repugnant to his tastes : 
the severe studies, the strict discipline, the roll- 
call, the morning drill, the evening parade, the 
guard duty were each and all distasteful to the 
poetical young dreamer. He was shy, proud, 
sensitive, and unsociable with the other cadets. 

253 



Cfte poe Cult 



He spent more time in reading than in study. 
This literary taste kept him away from his un- 
congenial classmates: he was absorbed in his 
thoughts, his poetical dreams, his golden as- 
pirations, for he was at that time preparing a 
third edition of his poems for the press, the 
second having been published in Baltimore, in 
1829. The rough sports of the West Point 
boys — their youthful pranks, their practical 
jokes, their childish follies — possessed no at- 
tractions to the young poet who aspired to be 
the American Byron, or Shelley. 

During his short stay at West Point, Poe 
made a high reputation for poetical genius, and 
when it was announced that he intended to 
publish his poems, great expectations were 
formed of the book. Gen. Northrop informed 
me that the cadets eagerly subscribed for the 
volume. Although he made few friends at 
West Point, he made no enemies there ; or else- 
where, except among the small poets and prose 
writers whose shortcomings were shown up in 
his critical capacity. 

After leaving West Point, as already men- 
tioned, Poe found a home in the family of his 
aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm, in Baltimore. She 
was his nearest living relative, and the in- 
timacy thus begun was the most fortunate 
event in the poet's unhappy life. From that 

254 



Clie Poe Cult 



time, however dark his prospects, however suf- 
fering his condition, however sad his thoughts, 
this devoted woman, this ''more than Mother,*' 
as he called her, was always by his side as 
friend and comforter. I knew Mrs. Clemm in 
her last years, when she was an inmate of the 
Church Home, in Baltimore. She was then 
four score years old. In my youthful admira- 
tion of Poe, I sought her out, made her ac- 
quaintance, got her to talk about Poe. All the 
world knows that he married her daughter, 
Virginia Clemm. But all the world does not 
know of his constant devotion to his child- 
wife (she was only fourteen years old at the 
time of her marriage) in sickness and in 
health. Mrs. Clemm never tired of speaking 
about ''Eddie's'' unceasing love of her daugh- 
ter, and of his filial affection for herself. 

Mrs. Clemm said Poe was most industrious 
with his pen, and would sometimes sit down at 
his desk at nine in the morning, and write until 
six in the evening, finishing five pages of 
Graham's Magazine during that time. 

In my enthusiasm I persuaded Mrs. Clemm 
to visit a photographer's and have her picture 
taken. When it was finished, she looked at it 
for some time, and asked "Do I look as old and 
ugly as that?" (forgetting that forty years had 
passed since her last picture was painted). It 

255 



Cfte poe Cult 



is a copy of that photograph which is used in 
this article. I continued my visits to her as 
long as she lived, and when she died, I saw 
her laid by the side of her ''Darling Eddie" in 
Westminster Churchyard, Baltimore. 

It was while Poe was living in Baltimore, 
with his aunt, that he made his first success in 
literature, by gaining the $ioo prize, offered 
by the Saturday Visitor for the best tale. The 
limits of this article will not permit me to give 
the particulars of this contest, especially as it 
has been told more than once ; but the late John 
H. B. Latrobe, one of the committee who be- 
stowed the prize, was kind enough to furnish 
me the following account of the affair, a few 
years before his death: ''John P. Kennedy, 
Dr. James Miller and I were selected by the 
publishers of the Saturday Visitor to decide 
the best story and poem for the two prizes, one 
of $100 and the other of $50. We met, one 
evening, in my back parlor, on Mulberry 
Street, Baltimore. The Mss. were piled on a 
table, with a waste basket conveniently at 
hand. I sat at the head of the table, with Mr. 
Kennedy on one side, and Dr. Miller on the 
other, with a decanter of good old sherry and 
a box of fine havanas between them. Most of 
the Mss. were utter rubbish, and I, who acted 
as reader, was getting tired of reading, and 

256 



Cfje poe Cult 



the other gentlemen of listening to, the silly 
love stories, and sillier verses, when at the very 
bottom of the pile was found a small book, 
inscribed ''A Manuscript Found in a Bottle, 
and other Tales of the Folio Club,'' with sev- 
eral poems, including ''The Coliseum." We 
decided that Edgar A. Poe, whose unknown 
name was found in the envelope that accom- 
panied his Mss., was entitled to both prizes, 
but the publishers of tht Visitor did not wish 
the same person to receive both, and Poe was 
given $ioo for the best story, and $50 was 
awarded to a local versifier/' 

After the prize was awarded, Poe called 
upon each of the gentlemen who composed the 
committee in order to thank them. Mr. Lat- 
robe, who had graduated at West Point, first 
in his class, and afterward studied law, was 
impressed by Poe's erect, soldier-like bearing, 
as well as by the grace and elegance of his 
manners and the remarkable originality of his 
conversation. Mr. Latrobe said it was abso- 
lutely untrue, as stated by Poe's early biog- 
raphers, that the prize was awarded to him on 
account of his beautiful handwriting; the de- 
cision of the committee was made because of 
the "unquestionable genius and great origi- 
nality of the writer." 

On the 17th of March, 1894, I called to see 

257 



Clje poe Cult 



Mr. Gabriel Harrison, at his pretty, artistic 
home on Madison Street, in Brooklyn. The 
object of my visit was to learn some particulars 
of his acquaintance with Poe. He said his 
personal knowledge of the poet was in 1846-7 
when his fame had reached its zenith by the 
publication of the ''Raven/' ''He read the 
poem to me from a newspaper,'^ said Mr. Har- 
rison, "and, of course, I was struck with its 
many beauties, and was delighted to know the 
man who had the genius to compose so won- 
derful a piece of alliteration and harmony. 
When I praised those special and distinctive 
qualities in the poem, he said, 'alliteration and 
euphony of words are the genius of poetry.' 
The next time we met, I said, 'Poe, I am going 
to recite a fine poem to you; sit down and lis- 
ten.' I then recited "The Raven." While I 
was repeating it, his eyes were suffused with 
tears, and when I got through, he cried, 'My 
God, Harrison, did I write that?' He then 
took me by the hand, and said, 'by the power 
of your elocution, you have made me see beau- 
ties in my poem that I did not think it pos- 
sessed.' From that time he and I became con- 
stant companions. Many an afternoon did we 
walk to a favorite spot on the banks of the 
East River, where I read to him passages from 
Shelley and Byron, and heard him express his 

258 



Cfje poe Cult 



passionate admiration of the former poet/' 
Mr. Harrison was a witness of Poe's devotion 
to his deHcate young wife. ''They vv^ere in 
perfect accord : the one was the Harp, the 
other the Strings upon it, and what the one 
uttered the other vibrated back the concord- 
ance. They were, indeed, 'two souls with but 
a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.' 
Poe had a melancholy and worried expression 
of countenance. His voice was a low mezzo 
tone. His articulation was fine, and from his 
lips and tongue fell his words like the tones 
of a well-tuned lute. His soul was all in har- 
mony with perfect sounds, and he was always 
deeply affected by anything tender and pa- 
thetic. Often when he was reading to me, and 
came to a pathetic passage, the tears would 
blur his eyes, and he was obliged to hand me 
the poem to finish. He was always refined. 
Gentleman was written all over him. His 
thoughts were elevated; his language inspir- 
ing; his ambition high and noble. He was a 
remarkable man, and when once acquainted 
with him, he could not be forgotten.'' 

The fame of Edgar A. Poe has passed into 
many lands. His genius is one of the greatest 
intellectual gifts that America has bestowed 
upon the world. While we are justly proud 
of him as a poet, we have no cause to be 

259 



Cl)e' Poc Cult 



ashamed of him as a man, for the true wit- 
nesses of his Hfe prove beyond question that 
he possessed the very quahties that his enemies 
have willfully and persistently denied him. 
From their unbiased testimony, I have shown 
that he was gentle, affectionate, grateful, and 
''incapable of dishonor/' 



2ex) 



Clbe poe Cult 



POE AS SEEN BY STODDARD, STED- 
MAN, AND HARRISON. 

Of the many biographies of Edgar A. Poe, 
I cannot say that Richard Henry Stoddard's 
is the best. In his preface, he makes the bold 
claim that his ''is the only life of Poe written 
with no intention but that of telling the truth 
. . . the only life in which the poet's career 
from beginning to end is clearly and intelli- 
gently traced '' that ''it deals with facts, 

and not with fancies,'' etc. Yet he accepts 
with childish confidence, and repeats the sub- 
stance of Dr. Moran's so-called account of 
Poe's last hours, which was contradicted by 
the relative of Poe who was present at the 
deathbed. It is now known that Dr. Moran's 
statement was purely imaginary. He says 
that "Poe was taken to the hospital on the 
morning of the 7th of October, and died about 
midnight of the same day," that he "was found 
lying on a bench on Pratt Street Wharf." 
The facts are that Poe was taken to the hos- 
pital on the 3d of October, 1849, where he 
lingered in an unconscious state until the 7th, 

261 



Cije poe Cult 



when he died — that he wai found at a polHng 
place on Lombard Street. Dr. Moran gives 
a detailed account of 'Toe's last words.'' Here 
is a specimen: ''The arched heavens encom- 
pass me, and God has his decrees legibly writ- 
ten upon the frontlets of every human being, 
and demons incarnate; their goal will be the 
seething waves of black despair. Where is the 
buoy, life-boat, ship of fire, sea of brass, shore 
no more." Dr. Moran was the resident physi- 
cian of the hospital, but Poe died in the arms 
of Dr. William M. Cullan, the physician whose 
duty it was to attend to the patients; and we 
have his authority for saying that the wild 
and incoherent words attributed to the poet 
were never uttered by him on his deathbed. It 
is only justice to add that Mr. Stoddard re- 
jects that part of Dr. Moran's "recollection." 
Mr. Stoddard scrupulously avoids mention- 
ing by name any of the eight biographers of 
Poe; but he has not scrupled to appropriate 
their material and incorporate it in his memoir, 
without any credit whatever. The present 
writer has, perhaps, suifered more than any 
other in this respect, especially in the early por- 
tion of the memoir. Living in Baltimore, 
among the friends and relatives of Poev I have 
been enabled to gather information not access- 
ible to persons at a distance. That portion 

262 



€:ht poe Cult 



of Mr. Stoddard's work relating to the poet's 
grandfather and to his father's early infatua- 
tion for the stage, as well as the whole account 
of Poe's schooldays in Richmond, is taken 
from my memoir which was published in 1876. 
The latter was given to me by Prof. Joseph H. 
Clarke, Poe's teacher, who was then living in 
Baltimore at the advanced age of ninety years. 

Mr. Stoddard has surpassed the other biog- 
raphers of Poe in one particular at least — he 
has invented a birthday for him. He says: 
''As it might have been on the 19th of Febru- 
ary, I have fixed upon that day for his birth- 
day.'' Certainly an original reason for de- 
ciding a man's birthday — because ''it might 
have been." It might have been also on the 
19th of May or June. The doctors will have 
to decide whether Mrs. Poe could have played 
on the stage on the 24th of February after the 
birth of her son on the 19th. Mrs. Clemm 
told me that he was born on the 19th of Jan- 
uary, 1809. 

Viewing Mr. Stoddard's biographic sketch 
in the most favorable light, we cannot dis- 
cover that he has added anything to our knowl- 
edge of Poe which had not been made known 
by previous writers. 

We deem it only justice to say that the pres- 
ent reaction in favor of Edgar A. Poe is 

263 



Cfte Poe Cult 



greatly due to the intelligent appreciation of 
Mr. Widdleton, the American, publisher of his 
works. He generously aided and encouraged 
every attempt to vindicate the poet's memory. 
Mr. Stedman has written the most careful 
analysis of Poe's genius that has yet been 
given to the world. The students and scholars 
of this and other countries will be glad that 
he has taken his admirable essay from the 
soon forgotten pages of a magazine, and pre- 
served it in the exquisitely dainty little volume 
before us. He has evidently studied Poe's 
works with conscientious diligence; and, 
though we do not wholly agree with his esti- 
mate of the poet, we frankly admit that nine- 
tenths of his readers will. He manifests a 
genuine feeling for the ''sensitive feminine 
spirit,'^ whose life was darkened by sorrow and 
suffering. He says that Poe was ''an apostle 
of the art that refuses to take its color from a 
given time or country, and of the revolt 
against commonplace, and his inventions par- 
took of the romantic and the wonderful. He 
added to the Greek perception of form the 
Oriental passion for decoration. All the ma- 
terial of the wizard's craft were at his com- 
mand. He was not a pupil of Beckford, God- 
win, Maturin, Hoffmann, or Fouque; and yet 
if these writers were to be grouped we should 

264 



Ci)e poc Cult 



think also of Poe, and give him no second place 
among them/' 

Mr. Stedman pronounces the 'Xiterati" a 
prose Dunciad; but he does not do full justice 
to Poe's powerful analytical criticism which 
drove the dunces from our literary temple. 
He also depreciates Poe's scholarship: ''He 
easily threw a glamour of erudition about his 
work by the use of phrases from old authors 
he had read. It was his knack to cull sentences 
which, taken by themselves, produce a weird 
or impressive effect, and to ref rame them skill- 
fully. This plan was clever, but it partook of 
trickery, even in its art.'' Poe was a consum- 
mate literary artist, whose writings are more 
carefully finished than any American writer 
of his time. As Kennedy said of him : ''His 
taste was replete with classical flavor, and he 
wrote in the spirit of an old Greek Philoso- 
pher." In conclusion let us say, with Mr. Sted- 
man, that, "instead of recounting Poe's in- 
firmities, and deriding them, we should hedge 
him round with our protection. We can find 
one man of sense among a thousand, but how 
rarely a poet with such a gift !" 

Professor James A. Harrison, of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, has edited the most ambi- 
tious, the most voluminous, the most vexatious 
edition of Poe's works that has been vouch- 

265 



Ci)e Poe Cult 



safed to an eagerly expectant world. The first 
of the seventeen volumes of this edition con- 
tains a Biography by Professor Harrison. I 
have read this Life of Poe with the greatest 
care, page by page, several times, and I have 
found it a careless, rambling, disconnected, un- 
scientific piece of work. It displays extraor- 
dinary industry in collecting the material, 
but it is put together with no literary skill: 
like the would-be magician in the Eastern tale, 
the writer wants the magic touch. The most 
interesting portions of the biography are in 
quotation marks. Professor Harrison writes 
like an ambitious schoolboy, using all the big- 
gest words in his vocabulary. Here are sev- 
eral specimens: 

"In The Philosophy of Composition/ he (Poe) lifts 
the lid from the cauldron where glowed the constitu- 
ent elements of his wonderful poem-philtre and reveals 
to us its mechanism: the poem was to be about one 
hundred lines long, made up of eqi^ proportions of 
Beauty and Quaintness intermingled with Melancholy. 
A strange and thrilling refrain was to impress this 
combination on the reader by means of long sonorous 
o's and r's swelling on the ear and the memory in 
anthem-like undulations, reverberations of waves on the 
shore, clothed, the whole, in rhythms whose luxuriance 
of alliteration, susurrus of honeyed vow^els and liquids, 
and rise and fall of Eolian cadences would attune the 
very soul to melody and make the poem as sweet as 
the dissolving notes of Apollo's lute." (P. 215.) 

266 



Clje Poe Cult 



In defending Longfellow from the charge 
of plagiarism brought against him by Poe, 
Professor Harrison writes thus: 

**Lx)ngfellow had access to many languages . . 
he would have been more than mortal if assimilabh 
particles of the foreign gold had not clung to his mem- 
ory and inwrought themselves here and there with 
the filaments of a most malleable and plastic nature. 
The student of 'The Golden Legion' feels the Schiller 
background shimmering through the rich texture of 
woven gold as the bit of verbal Gobelins is being fin- 
gered," &c. 

Here is another specimen of Professor 
Harrison's ''fine" writing. 

''Foe's work was so strange, so extraordinary, so 
original as it towered and sparkled in columnar beauty 
amid the flat commonplace of the time, that it is no 
wonder if editors were startled and looked askance 
. . . as one might imagine the aborigines of 
Nubia gazing at the gorgeous bark of Cleopatra as it 
swept flashing down the Nile with all its oriental 
splendor and paraphernalia, a vision of light, per- 
fume, and beauty." (P. 271.) 

But this is enough. 

Professor Harrison takes a childish delight 
in airing his scraps of knowledge: he kindly 
tells us that Poe and the Allans sailed for 
England "in June, 181 5, the day before the 
Battle of Waterloo." Why not say on June 
17, they sailed? He, also, kindly informs us 

267 



t[!:ttt Poe Cult 



that, in 1809, the year of Poe's birth, ''Madi- 
son was President of the United States, Met- 
termich was Prime Minister of Austria, and 
the Battle of Wagram was fought.'' 

When he comes to speak of Poe at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, Professor Harrison treats 
us to a history of Albemarle County, in which 
the University is situated, and describes the 
surrounding country, not omitting Monticello, 
the home of Thomas Jefferson, and mentions 
him, ''from his own Parnassus, three miles 
away, looking down and beholding the spacious 
vale w^herein the cunning magic of his persua- 
sive tongue had evoked a scene of Grecian 
beauty that breathed the spirit of Old World 
enchantment'' ; not forgetting to embellish the 
picture with this "fine" touch: "The poetic 
mountain sprites exercise their ingenuity in 
carving out graceful vales, long undulating 
slopes, the winding labyrinths of silver rivers, 
and wooded dells thick with Vallambrosan 
shades." 

When Professor Harrison speaks of Poe in 
Richmond, he is good enough to remind us 
that Patrick Henry, "the Great Orator of the 
Revolution," was buried in that city ; also, that 
John Randolph, of Roanoke, "celebrated for 
his silvery voice and stinging sarcasm," was 
"a familiar figure in Richmond streets," etc. 

"^ 268 



tCfte poe Cult 



Harrison is a man of note, or, rather, Notes, 
for his seventeen volumes are loaded down 
with all sorts of notes, and the most notable 
thing about them is that they are chiefly about 
things not worth noting. He quotes Poe as 
saying: ''I am naturally anxious that what I 
have written should circulate as I wrote it, if 
it circulate at all/' Poe left corrected copies 
of his works, and, although he should be pub- 
lished as he wished, that does not mean that 
everything he wrote — the sweepings of his 
library and the scraps from his waste-basket 
— should be preserved. Nor did he want, or 
expect, that his works should be printed with 
every verbal change in different editions 
forced upon the reader's attention in a series 
of distracting ''notes.'' An editor should know 
what to omit and what to retain. Jove some- 
times nodded, Shakespeare was not always 
sublime, Poe wrote many things which his own 
fastidious taste would not have preserved. 
Professor Harrison claims great merit for 
hunting up every little scrappy book notice 
that Poe wrote, and boasts that he has given 
to the world, ''a new Poe in the realm of criti- 
cism." In his eagerness to do something that 
had not been done before, he not only prints 
these trifling book notices, but ''attributes" to 
Poe two volumes of criticism which should 

269 



C|e Poe Cult 



have been allowed to rest in the grave of dead 
magazines. In fact, he prints everything by, 
or supposed to be by, Poe, not even omitting 
''Big Abel and Little Manhattan/' and ''Street 
Paving/' 

Among the poems attributed to Poe, Pro- 
fessor Harrison includes "Alone,'' which I 
happen to know is genuine, for I discovered 
it in the autograph album of Mrs. Balderston, 
the wife of Judge Balderston, formerly Chief 
Judge of the Orphans' Court of Baltimore. I 
had it engraved and published in Scribner's 
Monthly. I gave the poem the name of 
"Alone," and dated it, as it had neither name 
nor date, but the poem and signature as pub- 
lished in the magazine are an exact fac simile 
of the writing in the album. 

Professor Harrison, Dr. Charles W. Kent, 
and Dr. R. A. Stewart have formed a Mutual 
Admiration Society, and have used the Vir- 
ginia edition of Poe's Works to exploit them- 
selves and show off their "learning," much to 
their own satisfaction, no doubt, but not to the 
entertainment of their readers. It works 
beautifully from a narrow, provincial point 
of view, but thinking persons only laugh at 
such transparent folly. A man is written up, 
or written down by himself, and by himself 
alone. The thousands of verbal notes scat- 

270 



Cfee poe Cult 



tered through the seventeen volumes by these 
industrious gentlemen, are useless, annoying, 
and distracting. 

In conclusion, I take pleasure in saying that 
Professor Harrison has my best wishes, but I 
respectfully advise him, in future, should he 
undertake to edit a literary work, to do the 
hunting himself, but to turn the material over 
to an experienced literary expert ; because, with 
the most friendly feeling, I am compelled to 
say that, when he tries to be instructive, he 
becomes laughable; when he tries to be pro- 
found, he is silly; when he attempts to sketch 
Poe's wonderful stories, he is simply ridicu- 
lous; and when he attempts to be critical, he 
is enough to make a stuffed owl die of laugh- 
ter. 



271 



Cfte poe Cult 



THE ^^DISCOVERER" OF POE. 

Every schoolboy knows who discovered 
America, but many intelHgent men and women 
do not know who ''discovered'' Edgar A, Poe. 
Some years ago, an obscure EngHshman 
claimed to have discovered Poe and made him 
known to the American people. Not only did 
this obscure Englishman claim to have intro- 
duced Poe to American readers, but he at- 
tempted to belittle and read out of court all 
Americans who presumed to write about their 
own countryman. But while attempting to 
undervalue their work, he did not hesitate to 
appropriate — I like a gentle word — their ma- 
terial. I was a student of Poe's Life and 
Works before this presumptuous Englishman 
had emerged from his original obscurity. My 
early investigations made me acquainted with 
many facts about Poe which were before un- 
known, and brought me into contact with per- 
sons who knew the poet. It was my privilege 
to know Mrs. Maria Clemm in the last years 
of her life, and our conversation was almost 
entirely about ''Eddie'' as she always called 

2^2 




MARIE LOUISE SHEW. 



Clje poe Cult 



him. Much information thus obtained was 
published in my first — which was a ''pioneer'' 
—Life of Poe, issued four j^ears before the 
EngHshman's pretentious biography had ap- 
peared. 

r confess I have been astonished at what I 
have heard regarding the ''peculiar'' methods 
this ''Discoverer" has used in adding to his 
Poeana. One of Poe's best friends at the 
time when he most needed friends — before, at 
the time, and immediately after the death of 
his wife— was Mrs. Mary Louise Shew, after- 
ward Mrs. Harcourt, who nursed him back to 
life from the desperate illness which followed 
the death of his wife. With his usual grati- 
tude for favors received, Poe addressed two 
poems to this lady — "To M. L. S./' and a poem 
in blank verse, "To ," commencing, 

^'Not long ago, the writer of these lines." 

The "Discoverer" of Poe discovered that the 
former Mrs. Shew — now Mrs. Harcourt — 
was in possession of four original poems and 
many letters from the poet. He wrote to Mrs. 
Harcourt to aid him in the defence of her 
friend. In the goodness of her heart, she sent 
him all the manuscripts, letters, and a minia- 
ture of Poe's mother, Elizabeth Poe. Among 
these poems was the original first draft of 

273 



Cfje poe Cwit 



''The Bells/' which was written at Mrs. Shew's 
suggestion. This is a manuscript of priceless 
value. I have been furnished with the follow- 
ing extracts from the ''Discoverer's'' letters to 
Mrs. Harcourt and her daughter, Mrs. Wil- 
liam Wiley: 

"January 28, 1875 — I have not returned the 
letter from Poe, enclosed in your daughter's, 
as I think I should like it lithographed, if you 
do not see any objection.'' 

"March 12, 1875 — I have carefully read 
through, and taken notes of your most inter- 
esting 44 pages. . . . You have a portrait 
of Poe's mother. I should so value a copy, 
and would gladly pay for it, if you would have 
it copied? Will you allow this?" (Mrs. Har- 
court sent him the original.) 

"April 16, 1875 — I am just sending you a 
few lines to acknowledge your kind letters, and 
to let you know that the two poems are safely 
to hand. These latter I will take every care 
of, and should like to have fac similes taken 
of them, if you do not object." 

"March 11, 1876 — A French translation of 
Poe's Poems is shortly to be published in 
Paris. May I let them have a fac simile made 
of the shorter of the two poems addressed to 
you ? The larger one I do not want to appear 
anywhere but in my forthcoming Life of Poe." 

274 



Clje poe Cult 



''February 24, 1876 — Your copies of Poe's 
poems are perfectly safe, and I am keeping 
them until I can have them f ac similed for the 
Life. I guard them as the apple of my eye V' 

''May 2y, 1879 (to Mrs. Wiley) — I have not 
completed my Life of Poe, and not deeming, 
from your kind mamma's correspondence, that 
there ever would be any haste for the return 
of the poems, I do not hurry. Of course, now 
you and your sister stand in her place, and 
as soon as I hear from you again, I will for- 
ward them to you." 

"January 22, 1880 — Mr. has received 

Mrs. Wiley's letter of December 22, 1879, ^^^ 
will reply to it in a few days, and will return 
the poems asked for as soon as he can find 
them among Mrs. Harcourt's letters and 
papers, doubtless within the week." (Note by 
Mr. Wiley.) "He had to hunt among Mrs. 
Harcourt's papers for what he 'guarded as the 
apple of his eye.' One poem, 'To M. L. S.,' 
was returned in June, 1880." 

The "Discoverer" claimed that Mrs. Har- 
court gave him certain of the poems, and the 
letters, and in one of his last communications 
to Mrs. Wiley, he said he had her letter, and 
would show it to any friend. Mrs. Wiley says 
that such a proposition as giving away any- 
thing written by Poe was not thought of, 

275 



tli:fft poe Cult 



talked of, or written about. Mrs. Gove-Nich- 
olls, who knew Mrs. Shew, and took her to see 
the Poes at Fordham, told the ''Discoverer" 
about the friendship between Poe and Mrs. 
Shew, and hence the correspondence. 

Mr. Wiley writes me that 'It is unreason- 
able to suppose that my mother (Mrs. Har- 
court), who treasured these precious me- 
morials of Poe for over twenty-five years, 
showing them often to her children and 
friends, would give them to a stranger in a 
foreign land. You know that Poe wrote "The 
Bells'' in her library. The story of its origin 
is true. ]\Iore than anything else she prized 
that poem. After her death, her children, in- 
spired by her feeling for the poet, kept, as a 
sacred object, the table on which the first draft 
of "The Bells'' was written. They learned 
to reverence everything that came to them 
through their mother's relations to the poet." 



276 



Ijc poe CUii 



POE AND THE UNIVERSITY OF 
VIRGINIA. 

When the University of Virginia announced 
a four days' celebration of the Centennial of 
the birth of Edgar A. Poe, I was astonished 
to see Professor Barrett Wendell, of Harvard 
University, named as the principal speaker 
upon the occasion. I expressed my astonish- 
ment in the following communication to the 
Baltimore American: 

To THE Editor: It is right, proper, and 
just that the University of Virginia should 
celebrate the centennial of the birth of Edgar 
Allan Poe, her most distinguished alumnus. 
Few American universities can boast of such a 
son and in honoring him it does a greater 
honor to herself. But why this long-delayed 
recognition of Poe's genius — why wait until 

Through many a year his fame has grown, 
Like midnight, vast ; Hke sunlight, sweet, 

Till now his genius fills a throne 
And nations marvel at his feet. 

During his life of sorrow, suffering, and 
song his alma mater said no word of encour- 

277 



C!)e poe Cult 



agement — it offered him no chair, no reward, 

no fellowship, when 

Unmerciful disaster 
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one 

burden bore — 
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore 
Of ''never — nevermore/' 

When the University of Virginia offers her 
tardy tribute to Poe lOO years after his birth, 
Vvhy does she select a New Englander to be 
the principal speaker upon the occasion — Prof. 
Barrett Wendell, of Harvard University? Is 
the South so destitute of literary men that its 
leading university could not find a Southern 
man to honor the memory of its greatest poet? 

Astonished as I am that the University of 
Virginia should select Professor Wendell to 
do honor to Poe, my wonder grows that he 
should accept the invitation, in view of his 
deliberately expressed opinion of the poet in 
his 'Xiterary History of America," where he 
denounces Poe as ''a man, in his life, of doubt- 
ful repute,'' adding that ''his life was ugly, sin- 
ful, sordid,'' and that "there are a thousand 
errors in his personal life." I am not surprised 
that he should express such an opinion of Poe's 
life when he displays such ignorance of what 
he is talking about. Here are a few speci- 
mens : "In 1826 he was for a year at the Uni- 

278 



Cfee poe Cult 



versity of Virginia, where his career was 
brought to an end by a gambling scrape/' 

So Professor Wendell accepts, with childish 
credulity the oft-disproved story of Rufus W. 
Griswold. Again: ''The story goes that he 
— Poe — was passing through Baltimore either 
on his way to see his betrothed, or on his way 
from a visit to her/' Such ignorance is truly 
refreshing. Here is another: ''Some petty 
politicians . . . picked him up . . . and 
made him vote all over town. Having thus 
exhausted his political usefulness, they left 
him in the gutter, from whence he found his 
way to a hospital, where he certainly died.'' 

It is certainly true that Poe died in a hos- 
pital, and that is one grain of truth in Pro- 
fessor Wendell's last statement. Let us hope 
that he has read some of the dozen lives of 
Poe that have been written since GriswokFs 
mendacious biography and that he knows more 
about Poe's life than he did when he wrote 
his "Literary History of America," otherwise 
his audience at the University of Virginia 
celebration on January 19 will not only be 
astonished, but, I fear, disappointed and dis- 
gusted. 

Euge;ne L. Didier. 

1722 North Calvert Street. 

279 



Cfte poe Cult 



This letter fell like an unexpected bomb- 
shell among the faculty of the University of 
Virginia, in the midst of their pretentious at- 
tempt to ''honor'' Poe upon his centenary. One 
of the professors, who is said to have secured 
his professorship through the generosity of his 
sister-in-law, who denoted $60,000 for the 
foundation of the chair which he occupies, was 
so incensed at the severe truths in my article 
that, he wrote me a letter so furious, so fran- 
tic, and so foolish that his more sensible wife 
persuaded him not to send it. 

Does this provincial professor suppose that 
I, a man of the world, I who have traveled in 
many lands, and met some of the greatest men 
of Europe and America — would care for his 
petulant and childish anger? 

The University of Virginia showed no in- 
terest in Poe until the Semi-Centennial of his 
death, October 7, 1899, when, ''with many a 
flirt and flutter," a bust of the poet was un- 
veiled in an alcove of the Rotunda Library. 
Hamilton W. Mabie was chosen to deliver the 
address upon the occasion. I have nothing to 
say about the propriety of selecting a Northern 
man to eulogize a Southern poet. I do not 
propose to question the ability of the South to 
furnish a speaker for such an occasion, but I 
do not hesitate to say, and I wish to say it most 

280 



Cfte Poe Cult 



emphatically, that the selection of Mr, Mabie, 
or any other Northern man, was a direct and 
distinct insult — a slap in the face of every man 
of letters in the South ; an open slur upon hun- 
dreds of men who were quite as capable of 
eulogizing their poet as Mr. Mabie, or any 
other Northern man. If the committee having 
the matter in charge intended to proclaim the 
literary poverty of the South, it is an admis- 
sion which I, for one, will never make. Mr. 
Mabie was the wrong man for the place, but 
he did show a certain appreciation of Poe, 
when he announced that he was entitled to the 
first place in American letters by virtue of pos- 
sessing a most exact literary conscience and 
producing works of the clearest and finest art. 
The connection of Poe with the University 
of Virginia is the most interesting fact in its 
history, yet, it completely ignored him until 
half a century after his death, when it joined 
in the chorus of the world's applause. This 
late recognition of America's greatest genius 
does not reflect much credit upon his Alma 
Mater. The ''meed of justice" was so ''long 
delayed,'' that the University of Virginia de- 
serves the disgraceful reproach of treating her 
most illustrious son with the cold and heart- 
less indifference of a stepmother, instead of 

281 



Clje poe Cult 



cherishing him with the tender and loving care 
of a fond and devoted parent.. 

When the University of Virginia sought to 
make amends for its belated recognition of 
Poe, the Committee having charge of the Cen- 
tennial celebration, stultified itself most igno- 
miniously by inviting Professor Barrett Wen- 
dell to deliver the principal address. The 
Committee was either grossly ignorant of 
American literature, or insultingly defiant of 
Southern feeling when it selected such a man 
for such an occasion — a man who had shown 
himself disgracefully ignorant of Poe's life, 
and outrageously prejudiced against him. 

The selection of this Harvard professor to 
deliver the principal address at the Poe Cen- 
tennial is most extraordinary in view of the 
fact that Dr. Charles William Kent is the 
Literary Editor of a ''Library of Southern 
Literature,'' which claims to be ''a scholarly 
venture,'' ''Southern in tone," whose "purpose 
is the frank and patriotic desire to lay more 
deeply the foundations of our greatness, by 
establishing that not New England alone, but 
the South as well, has enjoyed the gift of ut- 
terance." Yet, in the face of this declaration, 
a New England professor was invited to take 
the leading part in "honoring" Edgar A. Poe. 
It was a piece of amazing folly unsurpassed 

282 



.? 



Cle Poe Cult 



in the annals of literature, since letters were 
first invented, or since the Father of Poetry 
sang his immortal songs through the cities of 
Greece. However, we should not be so as- 
tonished at this foolish action of the Committee 
of the University of Virginia, when we re- 
member that the President of that institution 
awarded the prize of one hundred dollars of- 
fered by the United Daughters of the Con- 
federacy for the best essay on ''Robert E. 
Lee," to Miss Christine Boysen, of Minnesota, 
who spoke of what Lee did as ''treason'' that 
he "chose the wrong side'' etc. Dr. Alder- 
man, either did not read the essay before 
awarding the prize, or he agreed with the 
writer of the essay who pronounced General 
Lee a ''traitor." In either case, he is unfit to 
be the President of the leading University of 
the South. 



283 



Cfte poe Cult 



THE CENTENNIAL OF THE BIRTH OF 
EDGAR A. POE. 

The splendor of Poe's fame, the extraor- 
dinary and distinct quality of his genius, 
and the universality of its recognition, made 
the Centennial of his birth on the 19th of 
January, 1909, one of the most interesting 
events in the literary history of the United 
States, if not in the world. 

When Edgar A. Poe was born, it would 
have required an astrologer of divine gifts to 
have drawn the horoscope of his life. The 
child of strolling players, left a destitute 
orphan at the age of two years, brought up 
in luxury, taught to expect to inherit a splendid 
fortune, he was turned out on the world at 
the most critical period of his youth without 
experience, without a guide, without a dollar, 
but, by the divine right of genius, he has con- 
ferred more glory upon American literature 
than any other American writer, and taken a 
place among the few, the immortal names that 
are not born to die. Other writers of his time 
lived, wrote, and died, and in the course of a 

284 



Cije poe Cult 



few years, their works were forgotten, and 
their Hves possess no interest to the genera- 
tions that succeeded them. Who reads WilHs, 
Halleck, Hoffman, Drake, Paulding, Whipple, 
Tuckerman, Headley, Simms, and others — 
how few now read even Bryant, Lowell, Long- 
fellow, Irving, Prescott, and Cooper? While 
these once prominent writers are forgotten, or 
seldom read, edition after edition of Poe's 
Works are required to supply the ever-increas- 
ing demand. Twelve lives of Poe have been 
published, and the end is not yet. Magazine 
and newspaper articles, more or less false, are 
eagerly read. 

The universal voice of two continents has 
pronounced Edgar A. Poe the most extraor- 
dinary genius of the nineteenth century. 
After a life of sorrow, suffering, and song, he 
died when a better and a brighter day was 
about to dawn upon the ''unhappy Master of 
^The Raven,' '' who had lived and died a mys- 
tery to the world, to his friends, and to him- 
self. He died under a cloud, and for a quar- 
ter of a century, his name and fame were 
blackened by the vindictive malice of his ene- 
mies. The literary lion died, and asses kicked 
and mangled the defenceless poet; with fiend- 
ish delight, the literary jackals revelled in 

28s 



Cfie Poc Cult 



their prey. The maHce of Poe's def amers was 
only equalled by their ignorance. 

''In this dismal room fame was won/' said 
Hawthorne, after the Scarlet Letter had made 
him famous. He had waited long and pa- 
tiently for fame to come to him : for more than 
ten years he was ''the most obscure literary 
man in America/' as he said of himself. He 
was nearly fifty years old when he ceased to 
be "the most obscure literary man in America/' 
and became one of the most famous. To Poe 
fame came early in life: before he was twenty- 
seven years old he had acquired a national 
reputation by his tales and criticisms. He was 
only thirty-four when "The Raven" was pub- 
lished, which showed him to be the most 
original writer of his time. But, after his 
tragical and untimely death — he was only 
forty — in the full splendor of his mental vigor, 
his name and fame passed under a cloud which 
grew blacker and blacker, until, in the course 
of time, America rejected her most marvelous 
genius, and worshipped at the shrine of false 
poetical idols. He passed so absolutely out of 
the world's thoughts that even the time and 
place of his birth were uncertain, and the time 
of death and the place of his burial were un- 
known. 

The unveiling of the Poe monument, in Bal- 

286 



Cije poc Cult 



timore, on the 17th of November, 1875, started 
a revival of interest in the life and works of 
Poe. Since which time no American, and few 
writers of any nation, have been so written 
about in books, magazines, and newspapers. 
Careful and systematic investigation has dis- 
covered that he possessed the very virtues and 
attributes — gratitude, sincerity, and affection 
— which were denied to him by his early biog- 
raphers. ^ To the Honorable John P. Kennedy, 
his first literary friend, he always expressed 
the most unbounded gratitude on every occa- 
sion. In a letter dated Richmond, Va., Jan- 
uary 22, 1836, after speaking of his restored 
health and bright prospects, he says : ''I shall 
never forget to whom all this happiness is, in 
a great degree to be attributed. I know with- 
out your timely aid I should have sunk under 
my trials.^^ From a letter of Mr. Kennedy to 
Poe, dated Baltimore, December 22, 1834, we 
learn that Poe was paid only one dollar a 
printed page for his contributions to Miss 
Leslie's ''Souvenir," one of those namby- 
pamby "Annuals,'' ''Keepsakes," or "Gift- 
Books," which flourished in England and the 
United States between 1830 and 1850. 

The amazing growth of Poe's fame is shown 
by the extraordinary prices that the first edi- 
tions of his works command in the book auc- 

287 



Cl)e Poc Cult 



tion market, and by the universal interest in 
everything connected with his. works, and es- 
pecially with his life. One of the tests of an 
enduring literary rank is that of cosmopolitan 
approval. That Poe stands this test is shown 
by his rank as a world-poet. An American 
writer, who is not especially noted for bestow- 
ing indiscriminate praise — Prof. William P. 
Trent, of Columbia University — declares that 
Poe is a 'Trince in the Court of Fame,'' and 
that the 'Talm of immortality is upon his 
head." 

Naturally, the great occasion of the Poe 
Centennial caused many articles to be pub- 
lished about the poet in the newspapers and 
magazines. Most of these articles were in- 
spired by either ignorance, indifference, or in- 
justice. It is a singular fact that, even at this 
late day, when so much has been written about 
Poe, it is impossible for the average writer 
to tell the simple truth about him. The poet's 
portrait, as drawn by the press, resembles a 
ruined palace attempted to be restored by un- 
skillful apprentices, in which stately columns 
stand in the midst of ghastly desolation, and 
once beautiful frescoes are bespattered with 
mud. 

The early biographers of Poe were actuated 
by envy and malice, and invented lies to 

288 



CDe poe Cult 



blacken his name and cloud his fame. No of- 
fence was too grave, no crime too monstrous 
for the diabolical ingenuity of his enemies to 
lay at his door. The world read, wondered, 
and believed. The devil's work that the im- 
mortally infamous Griswold did was in accept- 
ing the position of Poe's biographer and edi- 
tor, when his heart was full of hate and malice. 
The law of biography is that the best should 
be told, and when this false biographer told 
the evil things about Poe, the world believed 
that he had made the best of a bad story ; and, 
thus an injustice was done to Poe that still 
overshadows his memory. Dr. Goldwin Smith, 
in the garrulousness of old age, prates of Poe 
as being untrue to his art. Either Dr. Smith 
has not read Poe's works, or he has outlived 
the capability of understanding them. All 
readers of Poe know that he was true to his 
art even in his slightest story, and this fidelity 
has caused him to be regarded as one of the 
most artistic writers that has enriched the 
literature of the world. 

The most laughable ignorance about Poe 
was displayed by a writer who claims to be a 
relative of the poet. A magazine of some 
standing was found easy enough to publish 
this absurd article in which Baltimore is 
claimed as the birthplace of the author of 

289 



^f)t poe Cult 



''The Raven/' Baltimore was, undoubtedly, 
the right place for the birthplace of our poet, 
but, unfortunately, fate decreed that he was 
born in Boston, a city which he heartily de- 
spised. The article under discussion contains 
scarcely a correct statement; I have neither 
time nor space to mention all of them. These 
will suffice: speaking of the present Holliday 
Street Theatre, Baltimore, she says, ''fifty 
years ago a noble player folk thronged its 
board. There in the dim ago, stood young 
Elizabeth Arnold, afterward the mother of 
Edgar Allan Poe.'' The old Holliday Street 
Theatre was not opened until the Spring of 
1812, months after Elizabeth Poe's death; it 
was burned down on the loth of September, 
1873, ^^d the present theatre erected, so "fifty 
years ago, a noble player folk" could not have 
"thronged its boards." In a rambling sort of 
a way the article goes on to speak of Poe's 
"wanderings in Greece and Turkey." All in- 
telligent readers know that Poe never went to 
Greece and Turkey. She further says that 
"Mrs. Allan died while Poe was at West 
Point." In fact, Mrs. Allan died on the 28th 
of February, 1829, and Poe did not enter West 
Point until July i, 1830. She says "Mrs. 
Clemm died only a few years ago." Mrs. 
Clemm died on February 16, 1871. She says 

290 



€:bt Poe Cult 



John p. Kennedy, one of the committee who 
awarded the prize to Poe, ''was, afterward, 
Postmaster General under President Tyler/' 
He was nothing of the kind — he was Secretary 
of the Navy under President Fillmore. Speak- 
ing of Poe's strange, mysterious death, she 
says, "on the night of October 4, 1849, he ar- 
rived in Baltimore from Richmond, by train." 
On the contrary, he left Richmond by boat and 
arrived in Baltimore on the morning of the 3d 
of October. She says, further, that he ''was 
drugged by Plug Uglies, by whom he was 
voted around the city." In fact, the political 
roughs known as Plug Uglies were not heard 
of in Baltimore until nearly ten years after 
Poe's death, that is to say, about 1857. Again, 
she says he "was found on the steps of the old 
Baltimore Museum, corner of Baltimore and 
Calvert Streets." He was found at the Fourth 
Ward polls, on Lombard Street, between High 
and Exeter Streets. She says he "was fol- 
lowed to the grave by Mrs. Clemm and a few 
classmates." Mrs. Clemm did not know of his 
death until after he was buried, and only one 
of his classmates attended the funeral — Z. Col- 
lins Lee, afterward Judge of the Superior 
Court of Baltimore. She calls Sarah Helen 
Whitman Sarah Osgood Whitman. The ar- 
ticle, from beginning to end, is a tissue of er- 

291 



Clje poe Cult 



rors. How such stuff gets printed would be a 
w^onder did we not know how profoundly ig- 
norant is the run of magazine editors. 

Amid the almost universal paeans of praise, 
of national pride, and international apprecia- 
tion evoked by the Centennial of the birthday 
of Edgar A. Poe, a few discordant notes were 
heard, piped by puny, petty, petulant men and 
women, who are either grossly ignorant of the 
poet's life and works, or envious of his splendid 
fame. While these few shallow, discredited 
American critics employed falsehood, insinua- 
tion, and vituperation in a vain attempt to be- 
little their own poet, the English reviewers 
celebrated the centenary of Poe's birth by ar- 
ticles distinguished by rare and discriminating 
appreciation, by fine literary style, exquisite 
culture, and ripe scholarship. 

As a specimen of the narrow-minded spirit 
still prevailing in some portions of this coun- 
try, it is only necessary to quote the language 
of Professor Arthur D. Hadley, of Yale Uni- 
versity, in attempting to explain the second re- 
jection of Poe for a place in the so-called Hall 
of Fame: ''Because nearly everything he 
wrote reads like the work of a man who was 
occasionally intemperate, and who did not 
habitually pay his debts." 

292 



Clje poc Cult 



What folly! What supreme ignorance! 
How convincing such a statement is that your 
college professor, outside of his own narrow 
sphere, is the most ignorant of men, excepting 
a police officer. 

Strange that men so fastidious in regard to 
the moralities could conscientiously vote for 
Henry Ward Beecher, or Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son, who pronounced John Brown a ''saint,'' 
or John Greenleaf Whittier, who was an 
avowed Abolitionist. Poe's scorn of mediocre 
men would have made him unwilling to be in 
such ill-sorted company as this absurd attempt 
at an American Valhalla has gathered to- 
gether by the votes of ignorant and prejudiced 
electors. 

All true friends of Poe should rejoice at the 
colossal stupidity which has kept him out of 
this incongruous and heterogeneous mess. Can 
we imagine a French Hall of Fame without 
Victor Hugo — an English Hall of Fame with- 
out Byron — a German Hall of Fame without 
Goethe ? And Poe was an archangel of virtue 
compared with these famous men. 

The asinine conduct of the electors of our 
so-called Hall of Fame inspired the blind-poet 
of the South, Father Tabb, to write this 
quatrain : 

293 



€:bt poe Cult 



Into the charnal Hall of Fame 

None but the dead should go; 
Then carve not there the living name 

Of Edgar Allan Poe. 

Some men have been foolish enough to say- 
that Shakespeare was no poet. Shallow, nar- 
row-minded critics have said that Poe was no 
genius. The world has decided otherwise. Ig- 
norant people have said that Poe's wonderful 
poems and tales v/ere the work of a madman 
or a drunkard. It is a well-known fact that 
crazy people believe all others insane. The 
conclusion is irresistible that those persons who 
say Poe was mad because he wrote such mar- 
velous poems and tales are themselves fit sub- 
jects for the lunatic asylum, or the strait- 
jacket. As to those splendid works emanating 
from the brain of a drunkard, I have only to 
say that it would be wxll to supply some of the 
present American authors with the same brand 
of whisky that inspired Poe so that our litera- 
ture would be more worthy of our place as 
the foremost nation of the world. 

Compared with his detractors, Poe's genius 
is that of the electric search light to a tallow 
candle. The small fry of American literature 
cannot harm the author of ''The Raven" by 
their malice and mendacity : he is too far above 
them to be hit by their pointless arrows. 

When Alexander the Great was asked 



294 



Cfte Poe Cult 



whether he would contend at the Olympian 
Games, he answered royally: ''Yes, if Kings 
are my antagonists/' So, I claim that Edgar 
A. Poe should be judged by his peers, if any 
can be found, and not by the small fry of 
American literature, such as some of those who 
have bobbed up in this his centennial year. 

A handful of fanatics, mad with impotent 
rage, rush out of the desert, and hurl their 
javelins at the Pyramids. The furious fanat- 
ics retire, in confusion, to their desert home, 
leaving the Pyramids unharmed by their futile 
frenzy. They stand, the imperishable monu- 
ments of the ancient, and the admiration of 
the modern, world. So the fame of Edgar A. 
Poe has outlived the vicious but impotent at- 
tacks of envy, stupidity, imbecility, and medioc- 
rity. 

Availing himself of the universal interest in 
Poe on account of his centennial, an obscure 
writer in Scrihner's Magazine attempted to 
dress himself in a little brief notoriety by at- 
tacking a literary artist whose intellectual 
shoes he is not worthy to loose. We all know 
who Edgar Poe is, but who is this obscure 
scribbler — what has he done in literature that 
quahfies him to judge such a man as the au- 
thor of ''The Raven''? He shall not enjoy 
even the unenviable infamy of Griswold, for 

295 



Cfie Poe Cult 



he is one of the unknown writers whom the 
world will willingly let die. Careful research 
and systematic investigation having exposed 
the lies told of Poe by his earlier biographers, 
later writers have attempted to depreciate his 
genius, but, in this they have succeeded, not 
in endangering Poe's fame, for that is world- 
wide, but simply in writing themselves down as 
being of the long-eared kind, to use no harsher 
term. Poe's Works stand, and will ever stand 
as the imperishable monuments of his rare and 
remarkable genius. There they are. They ' 
cannot be written out of the world's literature 
by the puny attacks of ignorant, malicious, and 
jealous scribblers. Unfortunate would it be 
for American literature should the impotent 
ravings of such poor creatures be heeded. 

I determined not to lend even my mite to 
keep alive the ignoble names of the later de- 
famers of Poe. One journal of imfamous his- 
tory opened its columns to articles inspired by 
jaundiced imbecility, premeditated malice, and 
vulgar spite. Oh, for the powerful pen of 
Poe to strike down these wretched scribblers 
who, in their mad jealousy, have assailed the 
master-genius of American literature in the 
hour of his glory. One of these writers is so 
ignorant of American literary biography that 
he speaks of Poe as a native of Virginia, and 

296 



Ciie poe Cult 



of the exquisite Maryland poet, Edward C. 
Pinkney, as a South CaroHnian! Think of 
such an ignoramus having the audacity to at- 
tempt to behttle Edgar A. Poe, whose genius 
is the admiration of two continents and the 
glory of his own ! Think of such a man dar- 
ing to speak of Poe's stories, which have filled 
the world with wonder, as ''apprenticepieces r 
Think of such a man who writes rubbish which 
no intelligent person can read, and which have 
long since been thrown on the trash pile — 
think of such a man, who has no more imagina- 
tion than a street-digger — having the supreme 
insolence to say that Poe has no imagination, 
when all the world has wondered at his aston- 
ishing imagination ! Think of such a man hav- 
ing the effrontery to say that ''this generation 
is doing work entirely surpassing Poe's in 
beauty/' Where is this wonderful work? 
Certainly not in this fellow's terrible trash. 
Poe's works are eagerly read sixty years after 
his death, while it is impossible to read this 
fellow's realistic rubbish, although he is still 
alive. He, also, says that the ''leading maga- 
zines of the present day would not have Poe, 
if he were writing now, and the theatres would 
no more have Shakespeare." No doubt, the 
magazines that print his stuff would not 
"have" Poe's fine, artistic work. He says, 

297 



bt Poe Cult 



further, he could not give his whole heart to 
more than three or four of his pieces, and in 
these not to above a stanza or two/' He says" 
of "The Raven'' itself, I would wilHngly part 
with far the greater portion, and I would be- 
stow in charity the untouched entirety of the 
'Ulalumes,' and Xenores,' and 'Annabel Lees,' 
and others of that make, but I should like to 
keep for myself . . . nearly all of the 
poem, 'To Helen,' because of two lines: 

To the glory that was Greece 
And the grandeur that was Rome. 

Such criticism is worthy of a crude, shallow, 
uncultured mind — to depreciate the exquisite 
gems which the world has admired for over 
sixty years, and to praise two lines of a juve- 
nile poem written at the age of fourteen ! It is 
a silly, transparent, mean attempt to destroy 
Poe's poetical reputation, but such criticism is 
taken for what it is worth by the reading pub- 
lic, and it is worth nothing at all. Literature 
to me is a ''dainty goddess," and I cannot bear 
to see it drest in the garb of imbeciles and pre- 
tenders. 

In striking contrast with the disparaging 
tone of some so-called American critics was the 
exalted praise bestowed upon Poe by European 
scholars and critics. An eminent French 

298 



Cfte poe Cult 



writer, Teodor de Wyzewn, declares in the 
Revue des Deux Mondes, that 'Toe's verse is 
the most magnificent which the EngHsh lan- 
guage possesses, and his poems masterpieces 
of emotion and music/' Baudelaire makes 
American materialism responsible for Poe's 
misfortunes. He is not very complimentary 
in speaking of our country, saying ''this bar- 
barity — referring to America — crushed, villi- 
fied, murdered him/' Poe, according to Bau- 
delaire, "in this seething mass of mediocrity 
and commonplace, cared only for the excep- 
tional, and painted it with rare beauty and ex- 
quisite art/' Another French writer, Barbey 
d'Aurevilly, treats Poe as "the most beautiful 
thing which that off scouring of humanity — 
America — has produced/' Poe, stranded "on 
that desert waste was trampled to death by 
the elephantine feet of American materialism/' 
Still another Frenchman, Peladan, in his in- 
troduction to a translation of Poe's Poems, at- 
tacks this land "without civilization, without 
art, without nationality, without a language, 
as the murderer of the greatest genius of the 
nineteenth century/' 

Twenty-three editions of Poe's Works have 
been published in France where he is regarded 
as a native writer. This unique distinction 
makes him a world-poet. 

299 



Cl>e Poe Cult 



Among German scholars, Poe enjoys the 
first place as poet and prose writer. Dr. Eric 
Schmidt, of the University of Berlin, sees in 
Poe's works ''the rare union of the boldest 
fancy and the keenest intelligence.'' Professor 
Wulker, of the University of Leipsic, pro- 
nounces him ''the first poet of North America/' 
Dr. William Victor, of the University of Mar- 
burg, says, "the cultivated world owes much 
to Poe's genius." England is equally enthu- 
siastic. Swinburne, her leading poet, speaks of 
Poe's "strong and delicate genius — so sure of 
aim, and faultless of touch, in all the better and 
finer part of work he has left us." He adds : 
"I take leave to express my firm conviction 
that, widely as the fame of Poe has already 
spread, and deeply as it is already rooted in 
Europe, it is even now growing wider and 
striking deeper as time advances; the surest 
presage that time, the eternal enemy of small 
and shallow reputations, will prove, in this 
case also, the constant and trusty keeper of a 
true poet's full-grown fame." Maurice Hew- 
lett writes, "Nothing that I could say could add 
to Edgar Poe's fame. So far as Europe is 
concerned, he is sure of his immortality." 
Israel Zangwell says, "while nobody has been 
able to imitate his poetry, his prose has cre- 
ated a school in France, in Germany, and in 

300 



Cf)e Poe Cult 



England/' George Bernard Shaw places Poe 
above Tennyson, Dickens, Thackeray, and 
speaks of his ''superb distinction'' as an author, 
and pronounces him ''the most classical of 
modern writers." Walter A. Raleigh, of Ox- 
ford University, writes "I have the profound- 
est admiration for Poe, and his influence on 
European literature has been enormous." 

A writer in the Nation of January 14, 1909, 
Curtis H. Page, declares emphatically that 
Poe "is vastly superior to all his American 
rivals for fame, as an artist pure and simple, 
whether in the short story, or in verse. There- 
fore, he is the one American who has been ac- 
cepted and acclaimed by the majority of intel- 
ligent Frenchmen." 

After all of these magnificent tributes to 
Poe's genius, the discordant croakings of his 
detractors will have no more effect upon the 
established fame of our poet than the hooting 
of a night-owl has upon the destiny of nations. 



TH:e lEND. 



301 



OUR NEWEST ISSUES 

5S^o?o 5r 0(0 yoi^ ^oiTc ^oX^ ^01(0 ^^jjo ^oro ^?^o^ jJ'^oKi jI^^W Sf^Ov^Ss^tS^ 

By Wilbert C. Blakeman. 
The Black Hand 1.50 



By John W. Bennett. 
Roosevelt and the Republic 1,50 



By Hon. Joseph M. Brown. 

(Governor of Georgia.) 

Astyanax — An Epic Romance 1.50 



By John Tracy Mygatt. 
What I Do Not Know of Farming .75 



By Esmee Walton. 
Aurora of Poverty Hill 1.50 



By Josephine Merwin Cook. 
Bandana Days 75 



By Howard James. 
The Wraith of Knopf and Other Stories i.oo 



By Geo ^e Fuller Golden. 
My Lady Vaudeville and Her White Rats. ... 2.00 



By J. A. Salmon-Maclean. 

Leisure Moments i.oo 

A Stricken City 50 



OUR NEWEST ISSUES 

0;Q,£;^ OlOjfo OlOtfoOJ 



v-^(V^ "y^V^ v^(!(^ v,^(V^ y:?6^ 3r''0(o ^Pofo o)sWot>XOM Or o/b ^oTo ^Jjoifb ^/S^ 

(i oND(i o O o oND 0x3 Cba^^S^^(3o^(S^^C>Q^xO (5oX9 v^oNS (5'ox5 o o* 

By Alexandre Erixon. 
The Vale of Shadows 1.50 



By Mrs. Josephine M. Clarke. 
The King Squirrel of Central Park (Juvenile) . .60 

By William N. Freeman. 
St. Mammon 1.50 

By Mrs. I. Lowenberg. 
The Irresistible Current 1.50 

By M. Y. T. H. Myth. 

Tales of Enchantment i.oo 

A Tale Confided by the Woods 75 

By Ida Blanche V/all. 
Comedy of Petty Conflicts 1.25 

By Elizabeth Helene Freston. 

Poems (portrait) beautifully bound i.oo 

Italians Fornarina (leather) 3.00 

Compiled by Darwin W. Esmond. 
Poetry of Childhood, by Paul Warner Esmond 
(Memorial Edition) 1.50 



OUR NEWEST ISSUES 

5^^v^ Z^f^ Zi^i^ ^^(S^ yl^^ ^y^^ y-^^ Z^^r* 5^^(^^^\^?^^<^2^^^^^?? 

By James A. Ritchey, Ph.D. 
Psychology of the Will $1.50 



By Charles Hallock, M. A. 
Peerless Alaska l.oo 



By Dwight Edwards Marvin. 

Prof. Slagg of London 1.50 

The Christman 1.50 

By Caroline Mays Brevard. 
Literature of the South 1.50 

By Susan Archer Weiss. 
Home Life of Poe (3d ed.) 1.50 

By Irving Wilson Voorhees, M.D. 
Teachings of Thomas Henry Huxley (2d ed.) . i.oo 

By Mrs. Annie Riley Hale. 
Rooseveltian Fact and Fable i.oo 

By Hon. D. W. Higgins. 
The Mystic Spring 1.5© 

By Edith NichoU Ellison. 
The Burnt-Offering 1^5 



I 



} 



I 



